Echoes of Joy and Shadows of Loss: A Grief Journey

Echoes of Joy and Shadows of Loss: A Grief Journey

Introduction

Echoes of Joy and Shadows of Loss: A Grief Journey explores the profound grief of a mother reflecting on her son Dylan’s life, filled with joy and subsequent loss. It highlights memories intertwined with melancholy, such as football games under the bright autumn sky and band practice resonating with laughter, all set against the heartbreaking backdrop of his suicide. She recalls the sound of the crowd cheering as he scored a touchdown, the exhilaration of his band performances that brought light to their home, and the mundane moments that seem so precious in hindsight.

As the author grapples with guilt and regret, she questions missed signs of depression and the impact of her choices, pondering over the conversations left unsaid and the hugs that should have been tighter. Through her journey, she navigates the turbulent waters of memory, searching for solace amid the shadows, and ultimately seeks understanding in the complex interplay of love and loss that defines the path of her grief.

All the Beauty Without the Pain: I Just Want It All Back

I just want it all back, my life before suicide—
All those echoes of joy
Without the shadows of loss,
All the beauty without the pain.

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“The Beat of My Heart”: A Grief Poem

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Echoes of Joy and Shadows of Loss: A Grief Journey

If you are reading this as a mother, a father, a parent carrying the unthinkable, I want you to know: I’m writing from inside it, too. These are my words as they come—echo and shadow, beauty and pain held together. And if they reach you, it is only because grief makes us fluent in one another.

Memories Swirl Everywhere of You

I drove home last night past the high school. Your high school. An empty football field with mostly empty bleachers. A few students milling about, gathered in small clusters. Several teenagers sitting on top of their instrument cases, reminding me of you.

The Slant of the Sun and Afternoon Shadows Signal a Change in the Seasons

Summer sun, once high in the sky with the feeling of forever, has shifted to the slant of Autumn afternoons. Wide, low angles of the sun and shadows show the changing leaves on the trees, the deepening reds and golds, some fallen to the ground now and turning brown.

There is a crispness to the air now, a sense of fading, falling away, moving inward. Colors fade, leaves fall, nights turn cool. A time for football games and marching bands, if only you were here.

Echoes of Joy Through Hazy Memories

Hazy memories of you playing alto saxophone, marching proudly with the high school band, Gabardine purple and gold uniforms, countless Friday night football games, stadium lights glaring, hot chocolate at the concession stand. A band director with a haughty attitude who made you laugh, provided he was out of range to be heard.

Light gathers on the empty field, collects memories long tucked away, brings you into focus all over again. Just you. An alto saxophone we both shared. Voices on the wind. Trees visibly bare now, and the cold wind brisk against the back-brush of all that was.

Friday Night Football: Just to Glimpse You

On Friday nights, I’d be in the stands at the high school stadium, pretending to watch the football game, but really only waiting and watching until half time when the marching band entered the field. Rat-a-tat-tat on the snare drums signaled the halftime show, and I’d squint to find you as the band criss-crossed the field.

I came to these games—just to get a glimpse of you.

Watching You Come of Age

I remember watching you come of age — shy away from girls, then tentatively, furtively, steal glances at girls. I’d see you smile painfully in shyness, then grow more confident as freshman year became your sophomore, junior, and then senior year of high school.

Shadows of Loss: Visions of You Where You Used to Be

Shadow visions: My car parked outside the high school every afternoon for two solid years of high school. Waiting, listening for the bell, watching students stream from all the main doors and flow out into their worlds.

My World Was You

My world was waiting for you to see me.

You would see our car, smile, then pretend you hadn’t seen me. Feigning coolness in an effort to impress the girls, to blend in.

Reminiscing and Recalling All Those Echoes of Joy

I loved watching you swing up and then slide off your shoulder your heavy L.L. Bean red backpack, sling it into the backseat, then slide into the comfortable familiarity of the Toyota Solara you’d grown up in.

Piano Lessons at a Local University

8 years old and all the way up until high school graduation

I remember driving that car to your piano lessons on Tuesdays beginning when you were 8 years old and all the way up until high school graduation.

Guitar lessons on Saturday mornings

And driving you to guitar lessons on Saturday mornings beginning when you wanted to learn to play like your favorite bands–Avenged Sevenfold. Asking Alexandria.

I remember taking you to Driver’s Education classes when you were 16.

Reflecting On All Those Shadows of Loss

Registering you for classes freshman year. Pain in the waking of memories.

How Confident and Happy You Were in 8th Grade, and How Miserable You Became Your Freshman Year of High School

How confident and happy you had been in 8th grade, and so sadly, how miserable you became your freshman year of high school. You rarely smiled.

If only I had seen the signs. The depression was there. The solitude was there. Wearing a black hoodie and t-shirts with your favorite rock bands that sang about pain and anger, suicide and coming of age.

Teenage Angst and Depression Looked the Same: I Couldn’t Tell the Difference

Teenage Angst and Depression look the same. I couldn’t tell the difference.

• What could I have done differently?
• What did I miss?
• What if I hadn’t pushed him so hard academically?
• Why didn’t I see his unhappiness then?

Shadow Memories: Your High School Was My High School, Too

Your high school had been my high school too.

Memories wash across my line of vision, blurred, disconnected, so long ago and yet so much here that I am both consumed and confused.

Moving from Los Angeles back to the Midwest, my stomping grounds, all to be close to family who, in the end, all moved away.

A choice–my choice–to bring my child of age all against the back-brush of my hometown community, never knowing

A choice–my choice–to bring my child of age all against the back-brush of my hometown community, never knowing that this community would swallow him whole.

Half the Time, I’m Not Even Sure My Life is Real

My life now. Painful if I stay here remembering. Painful if I move away remembering. I travel into what used to be such beautiful, rich memories. Now it all haunts. My hometown. Schools. Restaurants. Movie theaters. Main Street.

Jolly Pirates for doughnuts on sleepover nights. Dairy Queen (always chocolate) after band concerts. General Tso’s chicken from Double Dragon Take-Out on days I had to work late.

Half the time, I’m not even sure my life is real.

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Echoes of Joy and Shadows of Loss Swirl in a Surreal Haze

I swirl in a surreal haze, my line of vision,

blurred,

disconnected,

so long ago yet so much here

that I am both consumed and confused.

Wherever You Forever Are, This Distance of Stars In-Between Us Now

This Distance of Stars In-Between Us Now

I have my before suicide life
I have my post suicide life.
And I inherently inhabit
neither the past, nor the present.

I live in the interim,
caught between this world
and the next, that wherever world, wherever you forever are,
This distance of stars i
in-between us now.

Healing from Grief: Teenage Angst and Depression Can Seem Indistinguishable

My Son’s Depression Looked Like Teenage Angst

Teenage angst and major depression can often seem nearly indistinguishable to those looking in from the outside. Dylan, like many of his friends, often wore a familiar black hoodie and jeans, blending in with those around him.

Friday Night Pizza Parties with Friends

Dylan brought laughter and energy to Friday night pizza party sleepovers at our house. He would game with his friends, sharing smiles and jokes.

Yet, there were moments when Dylan appeared to be lost in deep thought, wistful even. But he would quickly shift back to a smile, masking the emotions swirling beneath the surface.

The Turmoil of Teenage Angst Masked Dylan’s Sadness

The turmoil of teenage angst, accompanied by mood swings, challenging parental rules, feelings of social isolation, disrupted sleep patterns, fluctuations in eating habits, and profound sadness or anxiety, often veiled the depth of Dylan’s despair and sorrow.

It’s only through the lens of hindsight, which is inevitably tinged with regret for those who have lost a child to suicide, that I realize how skillfully Dylan concealed his struggles, camouflaged by the façade of typical teenage angst.

Shadows of Loss: My Post-Suicide Life

It is enough to breathe. To catch my breath. To exhale this pain.

I wander still, 3 years, 8 months after Dylan’s death, so much more capable in so many ways of faking it, of masking — typically, so much pain, so many-folded layers of grappling with suicide and death and losing my child.

And yet still, inside, in my heart, in my Dylan-sized hole which is, in truth, all of me, I falter, lose my way — fall, shatter, and break all over again — sometimes predictably, but so oftentimes, not predictably at all.

It is enough to breathe. To catch my breath. To exhale this pain.

Next month is Dylan’s birthday. March 19th. I’ve known about this for awhile because my insides won’t let me rest. I can feel it in my gut. The slow onward march. Relentless. Pursuing. Steady on into this season of his death.

Promise. Hope. Difficulties, but always Hope

March 19th, 2012, Dylan turned 20 years old. Promise. Hope. Difficulties, but always Hope. Fear. Two previous suicide attempts. Staying with my sister and her family. Trying to get his life on the right track. A job at a local electronics store.

Illusive–His Will to Live, His Wanting to Stay

But illusive — his will to live, his wanting to stay, his wishing for stars and galaxies and peace and silence and on a Facebook post: “just waiting to be struck by lightening.”

Failed attempts at relationships, pulling away from his childhood friends, his running buddies, those who really knew him.

A hideous, hellish suicide attempt after getting paid for his first week of work at the electronics’ store, all because why? Why suicide, why?

In the earliest days, I wrote my way through that question—The Slow Onward March of “Why Suicide, Why?”—because grief, at first, is not a journey so much as an interrogation. Why suicide, why? Why him? Why not my love, my watching, my mothering? This piece is what comes after the first raw asking: the remembering that keeps arriving anyway—uninvited, luminous, and wrecking.

Coping with Suicide Loss: Consumed and Confused by Guilt in Grief Memories

Memories wash across my line of vision, blurred, disconnected, so long ago and yet so much here that I am both consumed and confused.

Shadow Memories: His high school had been my high school too.

A Choice to Bring My Child of Age Against the Back-Brush of My Hometown

Moving from Los Angeles back to the Midwest, my stomping grounds, all to be close to family who, in the end, all moved away.

A choice–my choice–to bring my child of age all against the back-brush of my hometown community, never knowing that this community would swallow him whole.

My life now. Painful if I stay here remembering. Painful if I move away remembering.

I travel into what used to be such beautiful, rich memories. Now it all haunts. My hometown. Schools. Restaurants. Movie theaters. Main Street.

• Jolly Pirates for doughnuts on sleepovers.
• Dairy Queen (always chocolate) after band concerts.
• General Tso’s chicken from Double Dragon Take-Out on days I had to work late.

Half the time, I’m not even sure my life is real. I swirl in a surreal haze, my line of vision, blurred, disconnected, so long ago and yet so much here that I am both consumed and confused.

Twenty Years of Love

Twenty Years: too short. Loved and treasured from birth to grave and beyond, a gift from God, too soon returned: Dylan.

Linda Brown Taylor, Twenty Years of Love: Dylan, My Forever Son

What I Really Want Is to Have Dylan Back

I don’t want to learn to live without Dylan because what I really want is to have Dylan back

I want Dylan on the bench at family dinners, on the roller coasters at Cedar Point, joking and texting his friends. I want his quirky sense of humor, his laugh that I can still hear.

I don’t want to learn to live without Dylan because what I really want is to have Dylan back.

Twenty years: too short. Loved and treasured from birth to grave and beyond, a gift from God, too soon returned: Dylan.

Linda Taylor, My Forever Son

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Related Reads

• Walking through Shadows: Surviving the Unthinkable Loss of a Child to Suicide
• My Forever Son: Healing After Losing a Child to Suicide
• Finding Hope in Nature’s Resilience
• From Sorrow to Joy : How Pain Colors Loss
• Finding Hope, Healing, and Resilience in Nature

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