A collection of letters written by our community to their loved ones.

To My Best Friend,

We are nearing a year without you. Somehow it feels like it happened yesterday and 10 years ago all at once. It’s weird to thinks it’s closer to the 1 year mark than when it happened. Yet, I am still very much stuck in March. There is not a day that passes where I don’t wake up and think of you, where I go about my day and think of you, or where I lay down to go to sleep and think of you.

Martina

Martina, it’s coming up to a year now since you did what you did. I want you to know that I don’t resent you for it and never have. More so myself if anything. While I now know why you did it, that doesn’t mean I understand it any more. The guilt has eased but is still lingering and I know that if you were here you’d tell me to stop being an idiot and stop thinking like that but it’s just one of those things I guess. I think this is something that I’m going to just have to learn to live with for now. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t think of you, what if anything I could’ve done or said differently or how different and better everything would be if you were here right now.

Amber’s Room,

Your diary, half written but filled with completed train journeys spent travelling to friends and artists; where adding a tattoo you had designed, totally imaginative and one of a kind, was as important to you as the holy grail. The hedgehog you revived, reared and rescued; mum has taken on rearing duties now, she takes them very seriously. Your jewellery making desk with pots of silver, partly made rings and dusty gems, you have a note on your shelf ‘look for ring everywhere!!, which was located years ago but the reminder still remains, in case it happens again… Your railing of leather jackets, enough to clothe the cast of The Lost Boys with pairs of Doc Martens to match. Your dried plants and herbs hanging on the walls and stuffed in jars for making tonics for friends and family, soothing their sleep and calming their days.

The best big sister,

I have written to you every year since , all the things I would usually tell you , the things I would only go to you for . I miss your smile and your voice and how easy it was for you to light up a room. I miss the times I needed you and you were there.

Dear Mum, Dear Bro,

I am angry you left without explaining honestly how you felt and what you were considering and let us help you. I'm angry you didn't fully seek mental health support, when we could have paid.

Dear Uncle Steve

“Why you”

My heart is broken, cracked completely in two
Since hearing the devastating news about you

Ripped from my world how wrong can that be
Your exit from life in the arms of a tree

To my brother

Hi Matt, summer is finally over again and I can start to breathe again. I don’t think I can ever enjoy a summer again no matter how much I convince myself. I think everyone thinks I’m crazy as all I look forward to is Christmas! I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most.

To my Big Bro,

It's almost been 100 days since you left us. Thinking about how you must have been feeling tears me apart and keeps me awake, scared of the nightmares that come. I feel like I can't keep the people I love, safe any more.

To my Dad

I wish you could have stayed longer to meet your beautiful granddaughter and watch me step into motherhood. I see glimpses of you in Evie, and I made sure to carry on our surname proudly in her name.

Mum

I wish you'd have stayed

I wish you'd have stayed

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.

Dad,

I’ve been questioning myself on what this letter means. Unlike most of the letters I’ve read so far I didn’t really get the chance to know you. Maybe that’s a blessing, although it never truly felt like that was the case.

To my Florist,

To my Florist,

Hi Boy,

I miss you. I’m so angry with you. But I miss you. I think my anger bubbles up because it’s easier to feel than how much I love you.

God, I would have died to take away those feelings that let you reach where you did that night.

To their daddy,

When I think about all of the different life scenarios we discussed on first dates, this was not one of them.

When I think about how you described your young life, your life progression, from Luton to law, when you told me your goals. This was not one of them.

When we found out I was pregnant and we talked about all the things we would do as parents. This was not one of them.

When we started making memories, before life became a challenge. We didn’t want this one.

When we separated and argued for months, trying to parent anyway we could. When we were trying to work out what option was best for our boys. This was not one of them.

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 baby brother,

My other half is a term associated with love

I’m using it to describe you, my brother up above


My brain etched with memories of laughter and joy


Only shared with you my brother, my special boy


There’s a poem called the dash, about time on this earth


About the use of our time from the day of our birth


Your time on this earth so short and sweet

To my sister,

I miss you. I'm still angry. Still confused. Still wondering if it is real. It's been 7 months since the phone call I replay in my head over and over to remind me it is real or sometimes when I want to feel the pain just so I can miss you.

To my Dad

It has been one year, two months, and 25 days since you left us. There hasn't been a single one of those where I haven't thought about you, about why you did this, about what I could have done to change things.

Of course the answer is I couldn't.

Dad,

I don’t think I will ever really be ok without you here. I have a hole in my heart that will never be filled - not with all the money, love, friends or fun in the world, and I am so very sorry I didn’t realise how much you mean to me sooner. I will never forgive myself for that.

To my Brother,

I lost you nearly three years ago, and I am still to process it all. Some days are good, and the relief I feel is no longer just temporary- but the reality and reminders of you still crush me before the day is done.

Dear S,

Next Sunday would have been our 6th wedding anniversary. It's strange to think back on our story now - things happened in such a whirlwind at the start, and now I've been grieving you for longer than we had been married.

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.

Dear big brother,

To my big brother.

To the one who was supposed to be along my side till the day life did us apart, to the one who was supposed to be a shoulder to lay on when things got tough. To the one who I was supposed to tell all my friends about, because of how much I looked up to you, and how much I wished I could be you when I grew up.

To the one who I still look up to, just not in the same sense as I did when I spoke your name, now it is just a lonely, long, stare at the stars - hoping you are looking down and telling me it will be okay.

To my amazing twin brother

Taylor, I miss you so much; life will never be the same without your laugh. We’re twins, we’re meant to be in this world together, we’re meant to be the same age. But now I’m 21 and you’re still 20… I feel like I’m leaving you behind.

Reader

Where to begin? Well,

typically, anniversaries might celebrate something like a relationship or a work achievement. This anniversary certainly didn’t feel like an occasion for celebration.

To my Matt

It’s been just over a year since you left us. The pain of losing you is still so raw. I loved you so much and would have done anything to help you, if only you had been able to tell me how you were feeling.

I had no idea, there were no signs that anything was wrong. We were so happy, planning to move away and have a better future. I am so sad for you and also angry that you have taken that future away from me and from yourself.

Dearest Christopher

Five years, two months and two weeks. The love, loss, guilt and anger I feel will be with me until I draw my last breath.

To my beautiful son,

The day you decided you couldn't live anymore with the pain and thoughts in your head, was the day part of me died too. I will forever ask why and although I'm told that it wasn't my fault, I blame myself for what you did.

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.