Submission 199
Dear Dad,
I have spent most of the last 5 years thinking about what I would say to you if I could. We did not say enough to each other when you were still here. I thought I had time. I miss seeing you every weekend and Sundays are still hard for me sometimes.
Submission 197
It’s been over a year.
As we approach the 2nd Christmas without you I am trying so hard to remember all the things that made Christmas so lovely growing up. Was it the tree, was it waiting for Father Christmas, was it the presents? And as I think about these things I realise that it was your love that made any celebration special. We really miss you. I just hope I get to see you again one day. My son misses you and talks about you often. My daughter doesn't remember but we will keep your memory alive I promise. And I see you in her a lot!!
Submission 196
Mum
I miss you, the world isn't the same without you in it. Although a year has passed I still feel like someone will tell me that they got it wrong, you aren't gone and you'll walk in that door again. I used to wonder why we hadn't been enough to stay, but now in my better moments I have such clarity of your love, how your actions were out of a desire to protect us and how cruel your mind was being to you that it didn't let you see any other way out.
Submission 191
Dear Dad
Losing you 4 days before Christmas completely turned my life upside down. Knowing that you called me and asked me a bunch of questions, and kept asking if I was okay… knowing now that you were trying to decide if I would survive… it’s a heart break that I’ll never get over.
Submission 184
Dear Dad
It is thirty years since you took your life, and I am finally “coming to terms with it” if that is ever possible. I was ten and had not seen you for five years. You have always been a distant yet integral part of my life. I recall your sister coming to my house and speaking with Mum at the front door. Later that day Mum told me that you had died, but not how. I did not know how to process this moment so the first thing I asked was if I could go and play with my friends. I seem to have repressed all the memories of our time together, except one. You and Mum had separated, and you were looking after me and we were in a shop, we had just left, and a security guard came running down the street. He stopped and searched you and discovered a bottle of Whiskey you had stolen. We then went back to the shop and the police were called and we were escorted in a police car to the station. I recall a female police officer showing me around the station whilst they interviewed you.
Submission 182
Dad
There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think of you. Almost four years since you lost your battle and I still search for you in the supermarket and file through the memories etched in my brain. I can’t escape the gut wrenching feeling of missing you. I can physically feel my heartstrings tug when I think of what I’ll achieve without you there to watch me.
Submission 175
Dear Dad,
I miss you so much it hurts. I am going through such an exciting time in my life at the moment which has allowed me to reflect on my own thoughts and emotions. Whilst I am super happy and grateful to be experiencing what I am, there is just a constant thought in the back of my head of ‘I wish I could tell my dad what’s happening.’
Submission 174
Dear Pa,
It's been over a year now since you decided to leave us, and one question that follows me around is: If you could feel the pain in me now, would you have still done it? Your demons were so bad I think you still would have, and that haunts me.
Submission 166
To the man who took me under his wing when I needed a father the most,
So many questions of why. Why now? Why ever? Why didn't you read my message that morning? Why weren't we enough for you to keep fighting?
Submission 164
Dad
As a child losing a parent to suicide, I feel as though my default setting is guilt and that I could have done more. I'm so sorry you had to go through what you did.
Submission 163
To my most precious Dad
How strange it feels to write that after all this time, that makes me ache. It has been 16 years, almost to the day, since you left. I used to write you letters constantly after you died, did you ever read them?
Submission 158
Dear Dad,
It has taken me a while to conjure up the courage to write this letter. There is not a day that I don't think about you, and I speak to you in my head each and every day. I want you to know that I'm not angry nor have I been since you left us. All I have felt is incredible sadness. For what you must have been feeling. For what could have been, and for all the moments you are missing. I am sad about the time wasted and the moments I could have been softer with you. I feel heartbroken that you aren't here to experience life when you were so full of life until it all got hard. I don't know if there is anything I could have done to change your mind, but I wish I could have been there to hold your hand. I wish I could have better noticed the signs and supported you.
Submission 155
Mummy
I still go to call you to see how you are. I still walk into your house and expect you to be in the kitchen offering me a cup of tea. I still long for the calls to ask to have the children round for tea. I miss you more everyday and what I would give to hug you once again or hear your advice.
Submission 152
Dear Dad,
I will never understand why you decided to leave me here alone, just 5 days away from Christmas.
Submission 149
Dear Dad
I lost you when I was too young to comprehend why you were gone. A seven year old girl had to grow up too fast and knew too much darkness way too young. The word suicide shouldn’t have meant anything to me, but it meant everything.
Submission 146
Dear Mom
I want you to know that I’m not angry, nor have I ever been with you since you left. All I felt was great sadness. Sadness for what you must have been feeling, for feeling so alone and for being alone in what must have been one of the hardest and darkest of moments. I don’t know if anything we could have said or done would have changed your mind, but I wish I could have been there to hold your hand through it.
I wish I could have seen the signs.
Submission 142
To my father figure,
You told me you would always be here for me, no matter what but the darkness won
You were the father I never had and I will spend a lifetime thinking of the goodbyes I never got to say
Submission 139
To my daddy,
I miss you so much. 8 years without you and my heart hurts.
I have a dad shaped hole in my life but you are my biggest inspiration and I am trying to help people like you. I have done so much over the last 8 years and I would have loved to have had you there with me. But everything I do, you are in my thoughts and I carry your love and strength with me everyday.
You were an amazing man and I will ensure nobody ever forgets the kind, gentle and caring man that taught me so much.
Submission 137
Dad,
It’s taken me a little while to have the courage to write this letter.
In my head I talk to you every day, but somehow having to summarise the last eight years without you didn’t seem possible.
Submission 127
Dear Dad,
It’s been 17 years without you now and some things become easier and some become harder. People say the pain never lessens but it does, the rough waves just become further apart and there is more time to breathe before the next one crashes.