Dear Nancy,

I often ask myself where I would even begin catching you up on everything you’ve missed. You’re an auntie, a role I know you’d have absolutely loved. I still can’t bring myself to delete our texts and you’re still saved in my speed dial list, I’m not sure why but it would just feel wrong to delete you.

Dear Harry,

Your birthday comes round so quick every year, another birthday i spend reminding myself of how much you have missed, how much you could have achieved or places you would have seen. It’s 8 years now since i saw you on your birthday. 8 years of missing you, 8 years of not being able to be your annoying little sister and come to you for advice as well as 8 years i got older and you didn’t…

Every milestone is dampened without your presence. I remember being your little sister always wanting to make you proud and i feel the loss of you when i’ll never know if you’ll be proud of me again because i can’t hear you say it.

To our beautiful boy,

Since you’ve left there’s been so many things that remind me of you. As times gone on it’s things that make me sad and happy in equal amounts. (More happy as we move forward)

When a new song comes out I think ‘You would love this’ and automatically imagine you singing it to us and sending us a video note. Then the pain hits like a punch in throat.

I often think wherever you are and whatever you’re doing I hope you get to hear these songs and you think of us too.

I’m sorry you had to go and I wish more than anything you had stayed but I’ll never be angry at you my darling boy.

To My Forever,

I think about you so often. I think about the moments that I fight to remember. I think about the time we were so out of it under the stars, talking like life together would’ve lasted forever. I think about when you made me promise to continue life for us both incase something happened to you.

To my Best Friend,

At times it feels like you’ve been gone for so long, but sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday. The shock of losing you is like nothing I’ve ever felt. I knew things had been difficult but I never thought it would come to this. When you died, I felt angry that you hadn’t confided in me like you always had. Why was this time different? I felt like you were selfish and had ruined all our lives. I wish you’d just waited, in the morning things would have looked differently. I also felt guilty that I’d rushed you off the phone that day. Two years later I feel differently. I’m just so sad you’re gone, and you have already missed so much. I miss my best friend. I’ve really needed you at times, and my life is so different now. I wish you could see that.

To the funniest person I knew,

Hey. It’s been over a year now since you left. I remember the first day we met, we instantly connected. The way you’d light up an entire room without even trying is something I’ll never forget. I remember you telling me that one day you wanted to be a singer/rapper. I hope that wherever the universe put you now, you’re living that dream. I’m so sorry that life was never fair to you. I’m sorry that I didn’t reach out more once we both went back to our homes. I still feel your light on the days where things feel so dark. I can hear you telling me to keep going. So I will. I promise, I will. And someday, when my time is up, I hope we can laugh together again. Miss you every day, kid.

Dear Grady,

I didn't get to know you very well before you died, but you've been in my head every day since. I'd like to think we'd have been friends. I remember your laughter in school and your smile. I remember watching you and your brother walk across the field together. We share a battle that I hope you knew you weren't alone in. What did you think in your last moments? Was it off childhood, of home and friends and dirt bikes and skateboarding? Was it fear and sadness so pervasive that death was a deity? I love you, Grady. And I always will.

To my wee Scottish pal,

Somedays it feels like a million years ago that you passed away but other days it feels exactly like the actual 1889 days ago that you passed away and I can feel every moment of those 1889 days.
Every time something happens either good or bad I always want to call you or message you.

Dear Karl,

It has been 5 years and this month you would have been 25. After what you put me through prior to your passing, I doubt we would be friends now. You may have achieved your dream of being in medical school to become a GP, one who would listen without judgement, understand and do everything he could to help.

I don't know if I miss you but I do wish you were still alive. I miss your humour. I miss seeing you sit in the garden, smoking and feeding the sparrows. I miss how you were always so kind, so gentle, so ready to help people.

I live my life for you now. I am out of the closet, and proud. I try and help people however I can, support their dreams. No one in my life now knew you, but hopefully they know your spirit and energy through me.

Dear L,

It will have been 6 years since you left in December. That’s crazy, isn’t it? 6 years is a really long time, or at least to me it is.

To my Florist,

To my Florist,

Dear Daisy,

Life feels strange the older I get and you are still 16 years young. I often find myself thinking about the things you’re missing out on and wonder what person you’d have blossomed into.

To my Brother,

Despite the years that have passed since you could no longer carry the weight of your sadness, l still find myself oscillating between the raw pain of losing you and the dull ache of missing you. And maybe worse than that I find every day is soaked in guilt.

Losing you felt like losing a significant part of myself - or maybe more accurately, the part of me that you were so integral to crafting became a part of me that was replaced with an angry, bereft shadow of its former self. Grief lives so permanently in my back pocket that I wonder what I’d be without it in the same way I feared what I’d be without you.

Anna,

It's the type of pain that will never end, I'Il miss you forever, my fierce friend.

Your suicide is the most difficult thing I've had to process. I don’t feel it’s my place to tell your story and I find it hard to admit that it’s part of mine.