My Forever Son: Chronicling Grief, Hope, and Healing After the Death of My Son By Suicide
My Forever Son
Chronicling Grief, Hope, and Healing After the Death of My Son by Suicide
Dylan, forever 20
Compelling Content by a mother who lost her son to suicide in 2012, My Forever Son chronicles her journey back from the abyss of losing a child to suicide; Categories include Hope and Healing; Support Books and Resources for parents and survivors of loss; Complicated Grief; Coping with Holidays; Coping with Suicide; Depression and Mental Ilness; the Stigma of Suicide; Narratives by the author; Original Poems about Child Loss; Suicide Facts, Statistics, and Research; Grief; Child Loss; and more
In June of 2012 on the eve of the 24th, I had a 20-year-old son enrolled at a prestigious university. By 4:00 a.m. the morning of June 25th, everything I knew to be sacred and true about my life would change. The incessant pounding on my front door came in the middle of the night. 4:00 a.m. and three sheriff’s deputies were standing on my front porch holding a ziploc gallon-size plastic bag with Dylan’s Samsung mobile phone and his brown leather wallet. The one I had given him for his birthday in March. 20. Dylan had only just turned 20. Cusp of young adulthood. Barely past 19. June 25th. A lifetime ago. His. Mine. Gone in a heartbeat. A second on the clock. My son.
My Forever Son began as Dylan’s story, but along the way, became my journey back from the overwhelming sorrow of losing my child to suicide.
I didn’t want to live without my son. A desperate longing to be with Dylan enveloped me. I couldn’t eat, sleep, work, or think coherently. I had no words. No voice. A writer without her voice and ability to write. A mother without her son. I didn’t want to stay. I couldn’t find hope enough to want to live. I didn’t believe I could live without my son.
I have had to learn to want to live again.
Latest Posts
My Forever Son
Surviving Suicide Grief: “Does the Pain Ever End?”
The Pain Does Change “To those of you that still feel you aren’t even sure you want to behere and you can’t imagine ever being happy again. The pain doeschange, it softens. You will want to live again and be able to enjoylife again. It will never be like before but the crushing, allconsuming pain…
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“I Will Seek Until I Find You”-A Poem About Losing a Child
I Will Seek Until I Find You I Will Seek Until I Find You And where will you run when arms reach (but you’re not mine) When I can feel still so strongly (holding you still in my arms) From here frantic I search wildly (but cannot ever now find) Little one in pictures (trying…
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A Short Animated Video-“I Had a Black Dog, His Name Was Depression”
Depression Yes. Just yes. I struggle with depression. I battle with depression. Sometimes daily, consuming every waking and sleeping moment. Sometimes randomly. No apparent reason that anyone else can see. Depression is a black dog. Great video depiction. Dylan struggled with depression-deep, deep dark depression. He fought for a long time and fooled us all…
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“When Someone is Too Bruised to Be Touched”-On Suicide and Despair
That All of Love Could Sweep Time Back 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…
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Why? After the Suicide of My Son-A Mother Remembers
I Will Seek Until I Find You And where will you run when arms reach (but you’re not mine) When I can feel still so strongly (holding you still in my arms) From here frantic I search wildly (but cannot ever now find) Little one in pictures (trying hard for one so young) Standing, but…
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Finding Help, Hope, and Healing After Suicide Loss: Support, Books, and Resources
Few things can so devastate us as the suicide of a loved one, especially of one’s own child. Fr Ron Rolheiser If You’ve Lost a Child to Suicide These Resources May Be Helpful . . .the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that after a stable period from 2000 to 2007, the rate of…
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Suicide is Not a Choice: Surviving Infinite Grief After the Suicide of My Child
Surviving Your Child’s Suicide Suicide is Not a Choice Current research absolutely supports the validity of mental illness. Current research and researchers in the mental health field know indelibly that suicide is not a choice your child makes. Beth Brown, My Forever Son Stopping the Stigma of Suicide Suicide is not a blot on anyone’s…
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The Pain of Suicide: It’s Not About Wanting to Die, It’s About Wanting the Pain to Stop
The Pain of Suicide Video: Learning More About Suicide 10 Commonalities of Suicide Below are 10 commonalities of suicide, identified by suicide expert, Edwin Shneidman, author of The Suicidal Mind. The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution: A suicidal person is seeking a solution to a problem that is “generating intense suffering”…
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Coping with Regret and Guilt After Your Child’s Death by Suicide: “I Want to Believe”
I Want to Believe– I Want to Believe- –that with enough love and laughter, books and reading, friends and family, children grow up to be happy –the stage is set early for dreams to come true: Skies dazzle in brilliant blue, clouds drift idly, stretches of pastures and woodlands lend serenity -all families stick together–even…
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A Song About Losing My Child-“You’re Free Now Child”
You’re Free Now Child I can’t see where you’ve gone And I don’t know how to just go on Without you can’t find my way Don’t know where to go or what to say How to breathe without you now When it aches upon my soul In my heart, you live forever, with me by…
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A Song About Losing My Child-Lullaby for Dylan
I wrote and recorded this song, “My Child Above (In Heaven’s Care) for my son Dylan. I’ve written 18 songs altogether about losing my son to suicide. Each song is born from a grief too deep for expression in any language save music. “My Child Above (In Heaven’s Care” is a lullaby. Dylan is, was,…
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New in the Holiday Grief Series-Handling the Holidays After Suicide Loss
Healing Through the Holidays Nine years. 3,435 days. Umpteen breaths exhaled grieving. The impossible journey to learn to breathe in again. To breathe past your exhale. To breathe in because it’s in the inhale that air floods senses, whooshes down the windpipe, pumps air into filling lungs and language, words that wrap and shape around…
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Holiday Grief Series-Handling the Holidays After Suicide Loss
“Taking Care of Yourself this Holiday Season” (The suggestions below for moving through the holidays after suicide loss can be found in their entirety at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.) by Doreen Marshall When we think about the holiday season, many of us connect to traditions which ground us in our histories, our feelings…
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Struggling with Guilt After Your Child’s Suicide: “A True Tale of 2 Mothers”
Struggling with Guilt in Suicide Grief Parents of children who die by suicide often battle anadded type of guilt. Even if they do not blame themselvesfor not directly intervening in the suicidal act, they often feelguilt over some perceived mistake in raising their children.“Where did I go wrong?,” “I pushed them too hard.” and“If we…
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One Last Mother’s Day Card-“I’ll Love You Forever Mom”
I’ll Love You Forever Mom “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.” Robert Munsch, Love You Forever Three Years Out After Losing Dylan Originally Published 2016 Memorial Dates It has been 3 years of acute agony, pain, and the hell of grieving the loss…
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Beth Brown
My Forever Son: Chronicling Grief, Hope, and Healing After the Death of My Son by Suicide
myforeverson@gmail.com
My Forever Son: Chronicling Grief, Hope, and Healing After the Death of My Son By Suicide
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My Forever Son-Chronicling Grief, Hope, and Healing After the Death of My Son By Suicide 