Submission 51
My darling,
I wished you had known how much we all loved you and needed you in our lives. I miss you every single day. I never realised how much you were hurting, you always liked to make everyone laugh and were so full of fun... looking back now I can see the signs and it breaks my heart I didn’t see them back then. We could have worked it all out if only you had stayed.
You’ve missed so much Martin I just hope you can see us and know we love and miss you and they ways we keep your memory alive.
Submission 50
Dear Hana,
Mommy misses you so much. I love you so much. I haven’t been able to write to you before this, because it’s too hard. My body aches and my heart hurts every day without you on this earth.
Submission 49
Mike,
You were always a bundle of energy and enthusiasm and some one people longed to be around. We are sad you are no longer in our lives but sadder you felt you had to go.
Submission 47
Dear J,
Half a lifetime has passed since you left us. Our memories of you have not diminished, rather they seem more vivid than ever. They are the invisible touchstone of our lives without you.
I think of all that you were, all that you gave and all that you left behind. It's still hard to recall the laughter we lost, the embraces we long for and the bright bright smile we can only now imagine.
Your suicide cast me adrift. Over time a new north emerged and I was able to plot a new course. More by trial and error than judgement dear J. You are never lost to us though.
Submission 46
Mum,
Today's my baby girl's 13th birthday. I can remember back to the week she was born so clearly. I think you might have waited and wished for her even more than I did. You were so proud and excited... We spent so much time with you in those early years. Some say we almost lived in each others pockets. Maybe that's true. But you were my friend as well as my mum and her grandmother.
We loved spending time with you.I wish you hadn't moved away...I wish you hadn't moved back...I wish you hadn't spent so much time thinking back to the past and what might have been.
Submission 45
Dear Yvonne,
You'll never know how much I miss you. How much it hurts knowing that you couldn't cope and had to leave us. Every day is a struggle now, perhaps that was your "every day".
Submission 44
Dear Ross,
It’s impossible to describe how much I miss you.
I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t there with you at the end. There’s so much I would like to say but I hope that though you are no longer here that somehow you will know how much you were loved and are still loved.
With all my heart I hope you found peace. We are trying to do as you asked campaigning for improvements in mental health services. Only now do I fully appreciate how much those improvements are needed.
Submission 43
Dear R,
I wish that you could have seen how important you were, how vital, how full of life, how generous, how caring, how beautiful, how loved. I wish that I had read between the lines of your last message to me and questioned some of the words.
Submission 42
Father,
Something I have never ever healed from and probably never ever will. I have spent years keeping these emotions in, it hasn’t been til this year I’ve felt ready to accept and come to terms with everything.
Submission 41
Dad,
I have so much that I want to say to you. I’ll start with the easy one, I never actually became the next Alan Shearer, like was our plan, although I still pretend most days (in the mirror), and there still sits somewhere inside of me the belief that I still can be him.
Anyway, the difficult part. Over the last 15 years I have found so many ways to try and cope with the fact you’re not here. For the first 10 years I pretended that it didn’t happen at all. I never said your name. I never talked about our family. I blocked out every thought possible. I certainly never spoke about how you died.
Submission 40
Sister,
So hear goes…… i’m not sure i’ve ever put it down on paper but i think it may be quite therapeutic. I’ve gone over what happened in my head so many time and spoken it aloud but always feel as though i’m either burdening somebody who is hurting as much as i am or somebody who quite frankly cannot relate and is not really interested in the details.
Submission 39
Dear Jordan,
As I write this letter to you son, it’s been 30 months since that fateful day. I remember the call I received from Charlotte as if it was yesterday. I also often think of those moments when she came home to find you and how with the assistance of Jan and Simon your neighbours they tried desperately to save you, probably knowing it was already too late.
The weeks and months of trauma which followed have become vaguer memories for me now and replaced by a general sadness whenever I think of you, which is every quiet moment of every day.
Submission 38
Bro,
What can I say I know you must have been hurting to do such a thing, however the pain a misery you caused has been unbearable to our parents.I have long been angry at you for this and it has had a detrimental effect on my own life. One of my regrets is that we spent so much of our youth fighting and arguing making our mums life so hard. And just as we had both turned a corner and grown up you decided it was time to go.
Submission 37
Daniel,
I will never understand why everything I did to help you wasn't enough to keep you here. I am sorry you had to battle mental illness. It is not fair for you and others that have to deal with your thoughts every day. I hate mental illness. You grow up happy with goals and dreams, then BAM! Mental illness enters your world and all of those go out the window.
Submission 36
Mum,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we never got to laugh and cry together. I’m sorry that you couldn’t tell me off when I didn’t brush my teeth. I’m sorry that you couldn’t tidy my hair, kiss me goodnight, and wish me good luck.
Submission 35
Dear Mum,
It took me a long time to start this. You left a little over five years ago now, but you were with me for almost 27 years.
In all that time you loved me so utterly and completely, with every bone of your being, you told me every day I could be anything I wanted and meant it. You battled so much in your life, and yet most people just knew you as someone who cared, someone who brought light and life into the world.
It is such a shame, but perhaps often true, that it is only after people die that we come to truly understand what it might have been like to be them. When you got ill, I did my very best to understand what it might be like to feel the pain you did, but of course I never could have known truly.
Submission 34
Dear Dad,
I've often tried to find the words I'd say to you if I had the opportunity to do so, Dad. If I could spend just one more minute with you. The reality is, I probably wouldn't say anything. Instead, I'd smile, hug you tight and thank you for being my Dad.
Submission 33
Dear Vicky,
It’s been a while. I still run. My “daddys hands” have found children to hold. I’ve grown a beard again. And I think of you still.
Madrid. Paris. New York. St Ann’s Hospital. Seven years. Shared memories, good and bad. None of this was your fault.
Submission 32
Mum,
If I could tell you anything
If I could tell you anything I would tell you how much I loved your kung pow chicken recipe,
That I loved your lack of speed in articulate despite a timer and shouting team mates,
I loved how much pride you took in your garden.
I loved that you put notes in my lunch box when I was in primary school (much to my utter embarrassment at the time).
Submission 31
Mama,
It’s been 1 year- 4 seasons, 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8760 hours, 525600 minutes, 31536000 seconds- since my world shattered. The words “your mom killed herself” forever ring in my ears and shattered my heart.
I struggle with figuring out my emotions surrounding your suicide.
On one hand, I totally fucking get it. I understand wanting so badly to be dead, wanting so badly for everything to end. I understand that life can be a terrible experience. In fact, I’m happy that you’re no longer hurting and suffering from unbearable pain.
But on the other hand, I don’t get it.