Submission 114
Dad,
It’s been 16 years since you left us, and yet sometimes it still feels just like yesterday. I go through stages of being ashamed of still grieving, then other times I am more gentle with myself and accepting that I will probably grieve forever.
Submission 113
J,
We miss you so much, every day we talk about you. I wish I could have done more to help you when you were suffering. All I can hope is that you are now at peace.
Submission 112
Freds,
I used to accidentally roll two cigarettes, one for you, one for me. I would then often imagine you watching over me.
Submission 111
Dear Dad,
There are no good words to include in such a letter. Various emotions mix with each other, I can't even arrange them properly in my head. A letter or even many letters is definitely not enough to tell about over 10 years of life. There will be no dialogue, which is what I would like the most. It is impossible to talk with a letter. At least 5 minutes with you to learn a few things - that's what I would love to have.To this day, I often ask myself a few questions.
Submission 110
To Abbs,
I always knew that, sadly, one day I would lose someone to suicide, but I never prepared myself for it to be you. I still remember the day I found out like it was yesterday.
Submission 109
Hello Patrick,
I am sorry we did not get to finish our conversation or that you did not take up my invitation to come and stay for a while.
I know you were angry. I know you were ‘stuck’. I know you had enough.
You were inside trying to reach out….and we were outside trying to reach in.
Submission 108
Hello Brian,
It has been a while since I last conversed with you. You were such a good conversationalist and story teller. We had very happy memories and funny stories to tell, which you told in your own special way.
Submission 106
Dear H,
You were the best friend, hilarious, irreverent, honest. I wish I new how you were feeling, I didn't even know it was an option, you kept if from us.
Your leaving has changed me forever, changed my family forever, changed so many peoples lives forever.
Submission 105
My baby brother,
Your extraordinary presence still haunts me nearly 2 years on. You were magic. It’s incredible (but not surprising) by how much you continue to inspire me, its bittersweet to think how much more you would have done if you had only chosen to stay.
I miss you. Every day. Every minute. I am so desperate to hold onto everything and anything about you. I try and remember how it felt to sit next to you, how your voice carried throughout the house, how you played the piano to reflect your mood of the day. There’s so much I painfully miss and carry with me.
Submission 104
Dear Papa,
It’s been 68 days since you left. The days keep ticking over, the number increasing at unrelenting speed, and yet, I am stuck in that moment with the words spoken “we’ve lost Dad.”
Submission 103
Dear Dan
13 years since you left us & some days it feels like forever ago & others it feels like yesterday.. the overwhelming feeling of grief just hits so hard some days.
Submission 102
Dad,
I'm sorry. We never discussed emotions much. I wish we'd started opening up a long time ago.
I hope you know how loved you were... are.
Submission 101
Dear Snoop
It’s nearly 2 years since you’ve been gone and although it feels like just yesterday we were chatting about Christmas presents and what we’d get mum, it feels forever since I’ve heard your belly laugh and seen your cheeky little grin.
Submission 100
Dear Brian,
It will be one year since you went home to Heaven on that beautiful October day, a day you were done fighting your hardest battle, your mental health. One year.
Submission 99
To my dear brother
There is not a single hour that passes where I don’t think of you. The pain you were in and our desperation to “fix it” you had suffered for so long I struggle to even contemplate how that must of felt.
Submission 98
Dear Dan,
Not a day goes by where I don't think about you. Where I think about us. What we could have been, where we could have gone, what we could have done...together. But now I am alone.
Submission 97
To my husband,
Almost 4 years on my heart still aches from losing you.
Submission 96
To My Dad,
Almost one year has passed since I lost you. One year since I last spoke to you. Heard your voice. Had one last hug.
Submission 95
Dear Sister
It’s coming up to almost a year without you. Our first day of 2022 was the day you decided to choose to start a new life wherever you maybe, pain free.
Submission 94
To my sister H
Sometimes I have to ignore the indescribable blackness and sorrow that has has engulfed my world since you died. I think of you and just swallow that tight feeling in my throat. I push it away because it's too much to bare. I hug your nieces tightly and move through the day as best I can.