Poems From a Mother After the Suicide Loss of Her Only Child

Poems From a Mother After the Suicide Loss of Her Only Child

A Brief Summary of This Post

In “Poems From a Mother After the Suicide Loss of Her Only Child,” Beth Brown of My Forever Son shares full-length grief poems written after she lost her twenty-year-old son Dylan to suicide. This post offers honest mother-voice poetry, reflections on child loss, realistic hope, and an invitation to read her Kindle collection, Where a Mother’s Grief Resides: Poems of Child Loss and the Work of Living On.

About the poems

These poems came from the years after my son Dylan died by suicide. He was twenty years old, my only child, and I have carried his absence for fourteen years. I remain his mother in every part of my life. I gathered several poems here in full because a grieving parent may need more than a title, more than a short excerpt, more than language trimmed clean for easy reading. Sometimes we need the whole poem, line by line, to stay with what cannot be said any other way.

Why I Am Sharing These Poems in Full

I began writing after grief laid bare my inability to express the vastness of what I was moving through. The poems stemmed from the guilt, deep longing, unanswered questions, the physical force of missing Dylan, and the love that remained when I could no longer reach him.

Fourteen years have not made this loss small. Time has given me distance from the first shock, but time out has also shown me how grief changes shape. I have felt the heaviness of grief shift its weight as it’s entered the wholeness of my life. I write from that long aftermath. I write for parents who know this loss from the inside, and for the people who want to support them without turning away from what is difficult to hear.

Several poems below appear in full. Together they trace the trajectory I have lived: a mother’s impossible wish to save her child, the violence of sudden absence, the mind’s return to what might have been, and the enduring act of speaking my son’s name.

If these poems meet something in you, I hope you will continue with my Kindle poetry collection, Where a Mother’s Grief Resides: Poems of Child Loss and the Work of Living On. It is where I have gathered more of this work in one place: poems written from the long aftermath of loving Dylan, losing him, and learning how to live with grief that still belongs to love.

What Poetry Has Given Me

Poetry gives my grief a shape when prose feels too orderly for what has happened. A poem can hold a broken image, a repeated question, a breath cut short. These poems carry Dylan’s childhood beside the harsh reality of his death. Prose can feel too linear for the depth of grief losing a child to suicide can bring.

Poems, too, can lend a sense of the suspension of time a parent feels when their world as they knew it is upended in their child’s death. The world does stop spinning when a child is there, always, in a parent’s life, and then suddenly, catastrophically, is not. These poems reflect the emotional breadth of losing my only child to suicide.

A Grief Too Big to Be Soothed, Explained Away, or Hurried

If one of these poems speaks to your own loss, take only what belongs to you. Read slowly. Stop where you need to stop. For friends, relatives, clergy, counselors, and others supporting a bereaved parent, these poems may help you understand why grief after a child’s suicide cannot be hurried, corrected, or explained away.

If you came here looking for words that understand child suicide loss, Where a Mother’s Grief Resides is the fuller gathering. It holds the poems I return to when grief will not make itself tidy: poems of mother-love, guilt, memory, faith, anger, longing, and the work of living on with my son still at the center of my heart.

Selected Poems

If Only a Mother’s Love Could Have Saved You

Bones bear girth where once,
Wisdom birthed you.
Love shaped curves
That held me (and you)—too.

If only a mother's love could have saved you,
Been there to catch your heart’s fall,
She could have stopped tears spilled by the heavens,
To where now and forever, you forever now reside.

Your descent of life hers, labored love borne,
On wings beating too wildly and too soon your own.
Your beat of heart hers now her own to live on,
Sick pulse of ache holding death in her arms.

Oh my heart and oh my son,
Without you life empties, yet love forever beats on.
And so now, my forever, “Why?” replete in my soul,
Which has always—and still, child—
Moved in grooves you made whole.

If only a mother’s love could have saved you,
Could have heard in the dark your heart’s cry,
She could have saved you yet both together,
Falling stars in a moonless sky.

© Beth Brown, 2022. Read “If Only a Mother’s Love Could Have Saved You” on My Forever Son. All rights reserved.

He Left Too Soon

He left too soon—
Lifting life from June,
Casting torrents of rain.

His absence—
Breath of pain whose exhale can only bring
Heart heaving, this beating of tears.

Breaking loose—
All hell in earth's upturned rupture,
Death shoveling shadows over me.

As I bend to lay flowers on his name—
Inscribed and bronzed,
A permanence come to stay,

My love laced now with pain
Standing over my son's grave,
Death's Derecho forever laid in my shadow.

© Beth Brown, 2021. Read “He Left Too Soon” on My Forever Son. All rights reserved.

That All of Love Could Sweep Time Back

Should've, would've, could've,
If I'd only come to see,
That might I future forward live
To see all eternity.

That I might know when, and where somehow,
And here and now then see,
To erase the dark and stay the day
To bring back you to me.

If only and what if now child,
And why couldn't I just see,
To hold you close forever
Clutch you tight, just you and me.

That darkness might not permeate
My heart now and yours then,
That all of love could sweep time back
And bring back you again.

© Beth Brown, 2021. Read “That All of Love Could Sweep Time Back” on My Forever Son. All rights reserved.

Once Upon a Blue-Sky Moon

Once upon a blue-sky moon,
We sailed our ships in your bedroom,
With stars for light, we fled the dark
But the lightning flashed,
And the blue sky arced.

You tucked away your childhood dreams
On wings that soared beyond infinity,
Your love in me and me in you,
But out of reach, beyond what I could do.

I launched your dreams,
You took great flight
On wings alone you soared too high,
But you found ways to onward flee
To galaxies beyond my means.

I watched you drift through hazy sky,
And chalked it up to teenage angst,
But oh my son, if I’d only known
I’d have reached right in to your dark night’s soul—

I would have held on,
I would have clutched you,
I would have never let you go.

But you told me,
“Mom, I love you.”
Oh my child, if I’d only known.

So I kissed you and I held you,
And I said goodbye,
Not knowing, blue-star moon,
I would lose you that night.

You lived, you breathed, alive in pain
Through storm-dark nights and cloudy haze,
But I didn’t know what I couldn’t see,
The damage done beyond my means.

My sky is dark, my nights deep blue,
My winter’s come, my star’s with you,
Without you here, I cannot fly
My wings you clipped
When you took your life.

And I live on and onward flee
Towards you my son and to infinity,
Where dreams come true and you live on,
And we fly again around planets and sun.

With stars that glow against the moon,
Your love in me and me in you.

I will hold you,
You will clutch me,
We will never let go,

And you’ll tell me,
“Mom, I love you,”
And tears from earth will overflow,
And I’ll know then, blue-sky moon,
To never ever let you go.

© Beth Brown, 2021. Read “Once Upon a Blue-Sky Moon” on My Forever Son. All rights reserved.

If Earth Were Sky (And Sky Above)

If earth were sky and sky above,
Then heart could hold this ache of love,
Suspended, like rain, in clouds wanting to fall,
But bound to sun’s joy because heart touches all.

I fall ‘ere so slowly most cannot yet tell,
My pain lives so deep and my heart goes through hell.
I crawl more than walk through days such as these,
Heavy with sorrow, wanting only ache relieved.

And yet truly what is can’t be undone,
I’ve lost my life in the loss of my son.
For seven years counting this marking of time
Having lost in him life, both his then and mine.

I stay hollow inside though try as I might,
Come to from the damage of my now soiled life.
I’d rather be still with my son by my side,
My heart filled with love and my joy still alive.

© Beth Brown, 2021. Read “If Earth Were Sky (And Sky Above)” on My Forever Son. All rights reserved.

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.

My child on earth above in heaven’s care—

© Beth Brown, 2023. Music and lyrics by Beth Brown. Read and Listen to “As I Tuck You In / My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care” on My Forever Son. All rights reserved.

Read More Poems and Reflections From My Forever Son

Use these companion reads as a guided path through the poems and reflections closest to this post. Begin with Where a Mother’s Grief Resides if you want the fuller poetry collection, then follow the pieces below by theme.

• Start with the fuller collection: Where a Mother’s Grief Resides: Poems of Child Loss and the Work of Living On — My Kindle poetry collection, gathered for parents grieving child loss and for those who want to understand the mother-voice behind these poems.
• The Beat of My Heart Shaped by You — A recent grief poem written from fourteen years out, holding the way Dylan still shapes every beat of my heart.
• “Beat Still My Heart”: A Mother’s Elegy for My Son — An elegy for Dylan that stays close to the physical ache of love continuing after death.
• “Sorrow Buried in Love” — A poem for parents carrying grief in the same place they carry enduring love.
• “Derecho: A Storm Out of Nowhere”— A companion piece for readers that details the historic storm on June 29, 2012 that arose during the funeral for the author’s son. The narrative blends the author’s grief of losing her only child to suicide and the shock of his funeral with the sudden eruption of violent winds, downed power wires, and darkened skies blotting out the noonday sun. On a day drenched in sorrow, the author reveals a narrative where even nature felt as though it were grieving too.
• “Still from Sky I’m Falling“— A poem on the overwhelming heaviness of guilt that accompanies grief after the devastating loss of a child to suicide. It captures the raw emotions that arise in such heartbreaking circumstances, where the weight of sorrow can oftentimes feel unbearable.
• “My Child on Earth Above in Heaven’s Care” — A lullaby-like poem of love, faith, and the ache of mothering across absence.
• “Falling Stars in a Moonless Sky” — A poem about still searching for my son. I search the night sky, tracing stars and constellations as though the universe might offer a sign, a direction, or a language large enough to hold the question that has never left me: Why suicide—why? Where did my son go?
• “Poems for Grieving Parents After Child Suicide Loss” | My Forever Son — A broader entry point into poetry as witness after the suicide loss of a child.

For the complete poetry collection: Read Where a Mother’s Grief Resides on Kindle. If this post gave you words for even one part of your grief, the book offers a deeper place to stay with that voice and with the poems written from a mother’s continuing love after child suicide loss.

A Realistic Kind of Hope

Hope, for me, has not meant leaving grief behind or turning loss into something acceptable. It has meant learning that love can keep carrying on even after catastrophic loss. It has meant finding enough breath for the next day, enough steadiness to write one honest line, enough courage to say Dylan’s name and keep his life present.

If you are newly bereaved, I will not ask you to reach for hope before you are ready. I will only say this: your love for your child is real, your grief has its own time, and you do not have to make your sorrow smaller to keep living. Some days, the work is only to remain. Some days, one poem, one breath, one remembered word may be enough.

About the Author

I am Beth Brown, Dylan’s mother and the writer behind My Forever Son. Dylan was my only child. He died by suicide in 2012, and everything I write here begins from the life I shared with him and the life I have had to live after losing him. I have taught writing and literature for many years, but this work is not academic distance. It is a mother’s record of love, shock, guilt, memory, and the long discipline of continuing. My Kindle poetry collection, Where a Mother’s Grief Resides, gathers more of this work for parents grieving a child’s death and for those trying to understand how love remains after a child is gone.

A Small Note for Readers in Crisis

This post is centered on poetry and grief, not crisis resources. Still, if you are in immediate danger or afraid you may harm yourself, call or text 988 in the United States or contact local emergency services where you live. For a list of support resources, read Finding Immediate Support Resources for Suicide Loss Survivors.