About

Why I Started These Chronicles That Became My Forever Son

What Happened to Dylan?

On June 25, 2012, I lost my son Dylan to death by suicide. A student at a prestigious Midwest university, Dylan immersed himself in music, art, and digital design. His grades reflected his ongoing depression with which he had struggled since early childhood. Dylan hid his sadness well—smiling and laughing with his family and friends, making silly faces and telling jokes to get others to laugh. Dylan thought deeply about things, and he cared deeply for his friends, oftentimes being there for others who were struggling while tucking away his own painful feelings.

Dylan is the reason I started My Forever Son blog. Writing about grief, suicide, hope, healing, and child loss has been my way of clambering through the infinite despair and grief brought on by losing my child, my only child, to suicide.

Who Am I?

I am Beth, Dylan’s Mom, and I started writing this blog on April 7, 2015. I had already been grieving for two years and 9 months, and in that time, had read and researched as much as I could find about grief, suicide, child loss, losing an only child, and depression and mental health.

I am also a writer and teacher well-versed in adolescent literacy and teaching freshman composition. “I read, I write, I live,” wrote William Styron. Yes.

Why Follow My Blog?

Because love lost by a child’s suicide hurts. Forever. Especially when it’s your child. Bereaved parents of suicides, survivors of suicide, those who have lost a child, and those seeking to understand the effects of suicide on those left behind come to my blog because either they or someone they know has experienced the heartbreak and devastation of losing a child to suicide.

What Content is Included in My Forever Son?

Resources and Support

Hope and Healing

• What it’s like to grieve the loss of a child over the course of days, months, years
• How to keep on keeping on
• Dealing with the stigma of death by suicide
• Coping when others say the wrong thing
• Finding hope through the darkness
• Beyond despair and toward healing

Surviving Grief

• Expressing grief through coloring, sketching, art, music, songwriting, poetry, writing, photography
• How grieving a child who died by suicide affects parents emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally

Breaking the Stigma, Suicide Facts and Statistics

• Bringing awareness about mental illness (especially bipolar disorder)
• Recognizing addiction/alcoholism as illnesses
• Where to Go for Support after Suicide Loss
• Is suicide really a choice?
• Featured Content: Poems of Love and Loss, original poetry about love and loss

New Content is Ongoing at My Forever Son

My life began when Dylan was born March 19, 1992, and my life ended when he died June 25, 2012. I have, since that fateful night in June, had to learn to want to live again.

Today, at 9 years out from Dylan’s death, I have learned to carry the pain of losing my son along with my love for him. My grief has not become smaller, but my world has grown larger. Dylan will always be with me, and my world today encompasses both the immense love and bittersweet ache I feel for my son.

Here is the Place I Come to Write

To try to make sense of a world I don’t understand.

To share what it’s like to lose a child to suicide.

To grapple with the formidable “Why?”

To which, of course, there is no answer, yet echoes still define.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son

Meet Most Beloved, my constant companion

Rememberer of Dreams.

Whisperer of gardens green.

At the whim of Most Beloved

And a hot cup of tea.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Gardens at Effingham

Join me at My ForeverSon for deep reflection about losing my son, and Gardens at Effingham, where cats tell delightful stories about their garden adventures.

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I live life between,

straddled here now and then–

my pen dripping ink,

my mind swirling confused,

your love lingering yet still

while a cat’s purring soothes

Beth Brown

Beth Brown, My Forever Son, Gardens at Effingham

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