A Lullaby for Grieving Parents After Child Suicide Loss

A Lullaby for Grieving Parents After Child Suicide Loss

This post, A Lullaby for Grieving Parents After Child Suicide Loss, includes the story behind Beth Brown’s original song, a lullaby for Dylan, the raw second-year grief recording note, the full lyrics to “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care,” and reflections after losing her son to suicide.

“My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care” — Original music and lyrics by Beth Brown

Fourteen years after my son’s death, grief still draws close. I wrote “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care” for Dylan, my only child, after suicide took him at age 20. The song rose from a mother’s sorrow and from the love that death could not finish.

Why This Lullaby Matters

The lyrics and music became my way of saying good night, speaking Dylan’s name, and giving other grieving parents a place where unbearable sorrow and realistic hope can exist together.

How the Lullaby Began: Writing Music in Grief

Missing Dylan carried me to my acoustic guitar. I held it against my body and listened for whatever grief might sound. The first line arrived before I understood the song: As I tuck you in, I lay me down.

My Child on Earth Above (In Heaven’s Care)

The Song, Audio, and Lyrics

Listen to the Lullaby

Listen to “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care,” an original lullaby written and performed by Beth Brown for her son, Dylan.

I recorded this song in my second year of grief. I have always meant to return to it—to lay down bass and drum tracks, add compression, shape the mix, and make it sound the way I hear it inside me. But at the time, all I had was the depth of my love for Dylan, a desk mic meant for speaking more than singing, and the moment itself. This recording came from the depths of my heart, raw and unguarded, as grief and love for my son poured through me.

Lyrics: “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care”

My Child on Earth Above in Heaven's Care

As I tuck you in, I lay me down
As I hold you now, I lift my arms
As I fall asleep, I pray for you
My child, my love, my heart, I’m with you too
My child, my love, my heart, may God keep and love you

And you will be forevermore
Safe from this world and so adored
And God will be your comforter
And I will always thank God for rescuing you
And I will always praise God for loving you too

And so I live my life in memory
Surrendering to God, what now must be
But here on earth I know the angels sing
When I hear your voice I know God’s listening

And I will always be your mother here
And I will speak your name for all to hear
And God will be with you 'til I get there
My child on earth above in heaven's care.

And I will speak your name for all to hear
And God will be with you 'til I get there
My child on earth above in heaven's care
My child on earth above in heaven's care.


All music and lyrics © Beth Brown, 2021. “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care.”

From My Son’s Darkened Room

I sat in Dylan’s darkened room, lit only by a candle, cradling my acoustic guitar and rocking gently back and forth. Almost as if I were holding a baby. My baby. Through all the years. Each year of his life. Each year of his love.

Writing My Way Through Grief

With tears cascading down my cheeks and my voice barely a whisper, I began to sing: “As I tuck you in, I lay me down.”

I sang the lines until breath and melody found their measure. I rocked the guitar against me as I once rocked Dylan. My voice descended, softened, and returned to the opening phrase—the circular motion of a lullaby:

As I tuck you in, I lay me down.
As I hold you now, I lift my arms.
As I fall asleep, I pray for you.
My child, my love, my heart, I’m with you too.
My child, my love, my heart, may God keep and love you.

© Beth Brown, 2021. “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care.”

Still Mothering My Son Through Song

I scribbled down the lyrics and first called the song “As I Tuck You In” because its melody and rhythm had become a lullaby. Only after the music and lyrics were finished did I give it its final title: “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care.”

Realistic Hope After Child Suicide Loss

Every note in this lullaby carries the sorrow of losing Dylan, my 20-year-old son, my only child, to suicide.

The hope in this song comes from believing I will see Dylan again someday.

Saying Good Night to Dylan in a Lullaby

Singing good night to Dylan carried the farewell I could not speak. My fingers moved across the guitar while I sang, As I tuck you in, I lay me down. From that line came the lullaby I later named “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care.”

I wrote one breath, one chord, one line at a time. The song carried what my arms could not: Dylan, my child; Dylan, beyond my reach; Dylan, loved with every part of me.

The rhythm stayed gentle because grief had left me raw. A lullaby rocks, circles, returns. I needed music that could return to Dylan when I could not.

I rocked with the guitar in my arms and sang the lines again and again. Not for performance. Not yet. I sang them to remain inside the hour.

A Lullaby of Hope

“My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care” began in grief and leaned, note by note, toward hope—not easy hope, not simple hope, but the hope I could reach as Dylan’s mother.

As I tuck you in, I lay me down
As I hold you now, I lift my arms
As I fall asleep, I pray for you
My child, my love, my heart, I’m with you too
My child, my love, my heart, may God keep and love you

“My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care”
All music and lyrics © Beth Brown, 2021.

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Dylan: My Forever Son

Why I Wrote This Lullaby for Dylan

I lost my 20-year-old son Dylan, my only child, to suicide on June 25, 2012. He was a sophomore in college, full of promise and potential, and his absence has left a gaping void in my life that is impossible to fill.

So why did I write a lullaby? Perhaps because I was at that point in early grief where all of me collapsed inward, reclusive and withdrawn from the world-at-large, grappling with an unfathomable loss that felt like a nightmare from which I could never awaken. The melodies flowed from my heart, a desperate attempt to connect with memories of his laughter and to soothe the longing that had taken over my existence.

Writing Became My Refuge

Writing became my refuge, a way to express the profound sorrow and longing that consumed me. Without my son, my world collapsed inward. I felt disconnected and in so many ways, felt a sense of the surreal in all of my life those first few years of early grief. Nothing made sense. I didn’t understand how the world could just keep on moving. My world stopped spinning.

I sat in a darkened room lighted only by a candle, cradling my acoustic guitar, rocking gently back and forth. Almost as if I were holding a baby. My baby. Through all the years. Each year of his life. Each year of his love.

Early grief took everything out of me. I withdrew from the world. My life felt unreal. I could not understand how the world kept moving when mine had stopped.Writing gave sorrow a place on the page. Music gave words breath. Through the lullaby, I spoke to Dylan as my son and kept mothering him in the only way left to me.

From Grief to the Hope Inside the Song

I could barely speak, let alone sing. My voice was more whisper than song. Singing required breath, an open throat, a body willing to make sound, and grief had taken all three. I wept and quivered. I rocked back and forth, back and forth.

And so from the depths of that grief comes hope in a lullaby–hope that I will see Dylan again, faith that God will keep him safe until I get to wherever my son is too.

Remembering Dylan Through Music, Songwriting, and Sound

I carried Dylan inside music before I ever held him in my arms. I had been in Los Angeles, in my third semester of music and guitar school, when I became pregnant with him. Thrilled, I came back to the Midwest, back near family, and played gigs through my pregnancy. Dylan heard all of it.

His father played bass and sang. I played lead and rhythm guitar and wrote the songs we performed. We made CDs, sold merch, heard our songs on the radio. Music entered Dylan early. Through his bloodline, the pulse of the music that moved through me as I performed and practiced guitar, and through a legacy that brought him into a world alive with creativity and discipline, songwriting and the discipline of practicing to a metronome.

Even newly walking, Dylan would toddle over to my guitar while I practiced scales and arpeggios. I would lay the guitar flat across my lap so he could play too.

I remember Dylan at 8 years old, just beginning piano lessons. Each week, I drove him to a local university’s music conservatory. For the next six years, his piano music became part of the rhythm of our home.

Still I hear his music. Still I hear his laughter. Still I miss my son.

I loved hearing Dylan practice. I would stand in the kitchen making dinner while music rose from the lower level of the house. On top of the upright Schuerman piano sat a little Schroeder figurine from Charlie Brown, with a plastic bust of Beethoven nearby. Childhood whimsy and serious music, side by side. Scott Joplin’s ragtime spilled into the air. So did Snoopy’s happy dance song, classical pieces, and later, the jazz of Thelonious Monk. Wonderful memories. Wonderful years.

Dylan began composing too, mostly unbeknownst to me. He had his own inner world, his own music, his own way of saying what words could not always carry. Later, Dylan made music his own. He played piano, keyboards, and speed-metal guitar, chasing the sound and force of bands he loved, including Avenged Sevenfold. He wrote and recorded his own music. He carried brilliance through his hands.

I had spent my life as a professional musician. After Dylan died, I lost my voice. Not only my singing voice, though that too. I lost the part of me that knew how to enter sound without breaking. In acute grief, still without being able to lend voice to the depth of feelings within me, this lullaby flowed from that silence.

Still I hear his music. Still I hear his laughter. Still I miss my son.

A Realistic Hope

I cannot tell another grieving parent that time heals everything. Fourteen years have not returned Dylan or loosened the fact of his absence. Grief shifts, recedes, approaches; love keeps its own measure. For me, music carried that measure—a guitar against my body, a melody shaped by breath, Dylan’s name held inside each line.

If you grieve your child, I hope this song keeps you company without asking you to move beyond the moment you inhabit. Some days, hope narrows to one breath, one memory, one note sustained beneath sorrow. For now, that can be enough.

With love for Dylan, my forever son—and for every parent carrying a child in memory.
Beth Brown

Remembering All the Love

About Beth Brown

Beth Brown is the writer behind My Forever Son, where she writes about grief, love, music, poetry, and healing after losing her only child, Dylan, to suicide at age 20. Through original songs, poems, and first-person reflections, Beth writes for grieving parents learning to carry both unbearable sorrow and enduring love. Her work offers no easy answers—only witness, compassion, and realistic hope.

More Music, Songs, and Poems from My Forever Son

• “You’re Free Now Child”: A Tribute Song for Parents — another original song of child loss, love, and release.
• “If I Could Find My Way”: A Song About Losing a Child — an unfinished song whose unresolved form mirrors grief, longing, and the search for a way forward.
• Grieving Through Music: A Mother’s Story — my reflection on writing songs, playing music, and finding a place for grief to breathe.
• Poems for Grieving Parents After Child Suicide Loss — poems for bereaved parents carrying the suicide death of a child and the love that remains.

If you are newly bereaved or need steadier support after suicide loss, I gathered help here: Finding Immediate Support After Suicide Loss. If you or someone you love may be in immediate danger in the United States, call or text 988 now.