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 173
To my baby brother,
I love you. It's coming on eleven years since your death. I miss you. I miss who you were, the sarcasm, the jokes. You were the only person in the world who found everything as ridiculous as me. I've never found anyone to match your wit. I also miss who you could have been. You were so young when you died. I don't know who you would have been now. I'm 35 now and you're 22. We were always less than two years apart. Now there's a whole generation between us. I have two girls, I tell them about you. I call you uncle. I know you would have found them so funny. I'm sure they would have laughed at you too.
Submission 172
Dear M,
I didn't know how intensively I could love a friend until you left. You broke my heart in a way that nobody else did. I know you didn't mean it and I know how much you cared about me.
Submission 171
Dear son
I can’t believe you are really gone from us, you have left a deep hole in all our hearts, that will never be filled. I am so sorry, as your mum, that I didn’t realise you were in so much internal pain and that you felt you couldn’t reach out and share that with us. That’s what makes me sad, that you saw no future, because you could have had a good one. From a young age, life wasn’t easy for you having a heart condition, I had lost a brother suddenly to heart failure and I didn’t cope very well emotionally, for that too, I am sorry. I am so proud of you, you turned out to be a lovely young man.
Submission 170
To my beautiful friend
It has been so long since we last talked. It has been 1095 days since you moved to a better place. I hope you are doing well; I hope you're okay. Life feels so strange. I feel like I don't belong here, I belong where you are.
Submission 169
To my brilliant son Lee
Hello beautiful boy, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to hold you tight little man, but of course you’re a big grown up man now. I bet you’re much taller than Dad nowadays.
Submission 168
My Wooage
This is a difficult one to write because despite loving you so much and being my oldest, longest friend- we weren’t in contact when you left us. I worry that you wouldn't want to hear from me, because there was so much pain involved. We went from playing in the same boxes at 18 months old, to hedonistic nights out as teenagers and rambling walks and deep conversation in our late 20s. Then we walked away from each other, through circumstances outside of our control. I never thought we wouldn’t be in each others lives. I always thought we’d figure it out after a break. It wasn’t our fault.
Submission 167
To Ben
Dearest Ben I have so many things to tell you , I have so many questions. Why would you leave? You were hurt in so many ways and and felt pain that no one should feel. I wish I knew and I could do something. I still feel you in my heart though I know that you’re gone but those feelings will never change and this pain will never heal.
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 165
To my friends
I hope that if you start thinking about taking your own life, that you become aware of the people that would miss you. Someone that smiles quietly inside because they see you walk by, someone that likes the sound of your voice or quietly sitting next to you. Someone that notices and likes your style of fashion and is inspired. And I hope you'd see that this someone, these people, might struggle to carry on knowing that you could not. I hope that if you ever start thinking about taking your own life, that life finds it's way back to you. That you know that taking your life is not the only way out of pain and suffering. I hope that you find support and guidance that truly helps you, nurtures you, comforts you.
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 162
Dear Imran
The day we lost you I remember letting you sleep in!! That's what I thought until I realised what had happened. I miss you so much my heart aches for you. I remember smelling your clothes as I wanted to keep the smell of you with me forever.
Submission 161
Dear you,
You know it doesn’t get any easier, minutes, hours and months pass but I think about you every day. Does it feel real? Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. I crave the sound of your laugh, the times we’d spend silent but in one another’s company and your infectious smile.
Submission 160
Hey Caroline…
Just me again, writing another one of my letters to you. It’s now been three years since you left. Just saying out loud - "three years" - doesn’t compute properly in my head. Three years is, after all, a long time - and it’s supposed to feel as such. But the nature of loss distorts our perception of time. Where once three years would feature many adventures - all of which would be documented into the mind in the vivid colour of the variety of emotions felt within that time - grief has a habit of homogenising our emotions, for the most dominent in any given situation is that of yearning for you to be present.
Submission 159
Dear Shane,
Dear Shane, your mam (my sister) was pregnant with you at the same time I was pregnant with my son, there were just a few months between you and growing up you were more like brothers than cousins. As you got older you went your separate ways but just picked it up again when you met up. Shane you were always the loud one, the lads lad, always laughing and lit up the room, I had such a soft spot for you.
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 157
C,
I miss you. So many people miss you. Life has been less than since you left. Everyday is less fun, less joyous, less happy, less sunshine, less beautiful. It's hard to make sense of the fact you don't know any of what happened in the last 3 years. How do you simply not exist anymore?
Submission 156
Dear Iz
I’m sorry I haven’t written more. It’s been a while—and the honest truth is that I’ve been putting it off.
It’s not that I don’t want to think about you and what has happened to our family, but I know that you would want me to enjoy this time—enjoy getting engaged and planning a wedding. I’ve let the excitement sweep me up and take me along for a ride, but it’s bittersweet. This big ‘life moment’ and everything that is coming with it has only made it more real that you’re not with us anymore. I think about you all the time, and I miss you so much.
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.