What Happened?

He Left Too Soon-A Poem about Losing a Child to Suicide

He Left Too Soon

He left too soon, lifting life from June, 
Casting torrents of rain,
and in his absence, heaving beating of tears.

I knew him from his first breath to his last.   
He came a month early on cusp of spring,
March awakening, still so much heavy winter 
my little one in such a hurry to be born. 

Breaking loose, all hell, earth's upturned rupture, 
Death's shadow glaring over me   
As I lay flowers on his grave, Beloved Son.

Inscribed and bronzed, a permanence come to stay,  
An ache I don't want--my love laced in pain 
As I stand over my son's grave 
Casting death to walk in my shadow.

© Beth Brown, 2021

My Forever Son-Mother’s Day, A Last Farewell

Love Lives Forever

Yesterday, I found a Mother’s Day card from 2012.  Dylan would be dead within a month a couple of weeks post Mother’s Day. It is bright orange, Dylan’s favorite color as a child, and it is beautiful. I wasn’t looking for the card, and it kind of just appeared. I saw it sticking out of a pile of other cards and things I’ve been intending to sort, organize, and put in a keepsake box.

The card says “mom, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t need your love and support. . .and I can’t imagine a time when I won’t. Happy Mother’s Day With Love” and Dylan signed it “I’ll love you forever mom. Love Dylan.”

That did me in. It’s now on my desk beside me, propped open to the “I’ll love you forever mom, Love, Dylan”

He knew, he just couldn’t tell me. I love him so much still, always, forever. Love doesn’t die. It is only this interim between now and when I get to see him again that brings ache and sadness and a constant heavy heart.

Orange Always Was His Favorite Colour

And Now just this,

orange always his favorite color,

his last Mother’s Day card to me.

And then June.  

“He left too Soon”

 All Giggles and Squeals

From Stride Rites to Gray Nikes

Giggles and squeals and all that blond hair. Little white leather Stride Rite shoes, worn and scuffed because you wanted to see and do so much.

I have your first pair of shoes, little one, one-and I have your last pair of shoes. Gray Nikes. Size 11, puppy feet on a young man still, yet, and always a teenager. And so in these shoes, in little baby feet, I measured steps-counting-always, your number of days here. Oh little one, where did time go?

How Long Has It Been?

When I started this blog My Forever Son, I was approaching Dylan’s third year memorial date. (As I write now, it has been nearly 10 years since I lost Dylan.)

I’ve accumulated many resources, messages of hope, helpful support, the list goes on and on, and it is my intent here to share healing and hope with anyone who has lost a child, be it to suicide or any other cause, and to all who knew and loved Dylan.

I am coming up on June 25th quickly. It will be my third year of grieving, healing, learning how to keep on keeping on, struggling to surface, learning how to live now, as is, as now, in the wake of having lost God’s greatest and most precious and beloved gift to me. I am devastated, always, even when I seem “okay,” even though I’ve learned to smile again, sometimes, even though I can now laugh and remember good memories, sometimes.

Losing a child to suicide is impossible

It is an impossible grief journey, and it takes an impossible manifestation of courage, strength, hope, and perseverance to keep on keeping on, and in truth, to even want to keep on keeping on. It has taken me almost three years of intense, acute grieving to want to be here, but still, on most days, I have to consciously seek healing strategies and ways to cope.

“That All of Love Could Sweep Time Back”-A Poem About Losing a Child to Suicide

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
and stay the light 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

When the Depression Came

There were nearly 200 people at Dylan’s funeral on June 29th, 2012. He was much beloved, a close friend and brother to all the boys he grew up with, a gifted musician, an academic scholar, an incredibly kind and wonderful soul. He got sick with depression early on, when he was 5 years old, and in the end, just couldn’t beat this formidable adversary.

Dylan was, and will always be, my heart’s song and joy. I am forever bonded to my son, and he lives on, not just “in my heart,” but in everything I do and am. I fully expect to be reunited with Dylan again–and this time for eternity–when God sees fit and it is time.

I miss and love and adore my son. All the time. And he is always my first and last thought each day. I have learned to be busy, distracted, during my days, but whenever my mind stills, Dylan is there.

Dylan is always there.

I am Beth, Dylan’s Mom
March 19, 1992-June 25, 2012
Forever My Heart, My Wings, My Love
Till Soon, Little One, Til Soon

Bittersweet Memories

Sometimes wonderful memories of Dylan seep in—but only just now, after 3 years of acute agony, pain, and the hell of grieving the loss of my only child to suicide.

Beautiful, albeit bittersweet memories come sweeping in and across the landscape of my heart and soul and body, and for a precious moment in time, I am reminded of and surrounded by all the precious love bonds between Dylan and me.

Other times, I am caught off guard in deep, deep ache and heart-wrenching pain. Tears always come, not always publicly, as I am sometimes able to make it to my car, or leave wherever I am to go home; other times, I just let the tears fall. I still sob after three years, just not as long and usually on my own, although this is not always the case.

My little white cat comes to me when I cry. She circles my feet until I pick her up, then tucks into me. Perhaps Dylan is with me still. . .