Submission 69
My Darling Brother,
It's been 2 years and 4 months since you departed.
It’s always been you and me, brother and sister .....and the world. We always had each other. Our sibling bond connected us no matter where we were or what we were doing. We were the joint keepers of our childhood memories and that’s so special. Just knowing we had each other here on earth was a constant comfort in our lives.
Submission 68
My big brother,
I often wonder where you are. I wonder if your there in the breeze and I look out into the horizon and tell myself your energy is soaring in the fuzzy bit between the sea and the sky. Because no energy can just disappear right?
Submission 63
Dearest Hugh,
This week marks 10 years since you passed away. It’s hard to get my head around that. Somethings have changed; the physical pain of losing you has weakened and I am not stopped in my tracks with a pain in my chest, my breath catching in my throat as often; I don’t wake up in tears from dreams where you are alive as much anymore; I don’t stutter anymore when people ask ‘what happened?’; I don’t fear having to tell people rather, I want people to know that you were more than how you died.
I want people to know that you were the funniest, cleverest and warmest person. When you died, the loudest volume of my laughter died too.
Submission 56
Dearest David,
It’s over forty years now since you died. You’re forever not quite twenty one years old, forever missed like a hole that’s never mended.
I bear the scars of your loss daily and it was so hard to get through and support our parents after you died. For them they could never admit you chose to take your life, for me it was important to acknowledge it.
Submission 55
Sis,
The day I lost you was the day my life changed forever. I never knew you was in this much pain, and I’m so upset that you never told me, and angry at myself for not realising.
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 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 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 28
My big brother,
I love you.
I always have. I always will. I’m so sorry if you didn’t know that. You wanted love and I had it in spades for you. I always will.
Submission 26
Dear Brother,
I feel sad and angry you're not here to support me right now. It's not fair that I have to do this on my own. You could have been so helpful in times like this and I understand why it was so hard for you to stay. I don't blame you for why you left. I don't know everything, but I do know you did your best with what you had and what you didn't have.
Submission 21
Shane,
I am writing this letter because I feel it is time to share with you and others all the questions and emotions that for such a long time I was searching for and felt were always unanswered.
By unapologetically letting my pen be my honesty and the paper my vulnerability, I hope to try and understand how a single three letter word can still hold so much power over me, which is "WHY"?
Submission 20
To my brother,
It’s been so hard to get to a place of acceptance. Accepting that I nor anyone else could have prevented your death. No one saw it coming. There was no obvious signs. You knew you were loved. You were making plans for the future. You knew you would have support if you told us something was wrong.
Yet with all that, you made a decision that nine years later still rocks our family. I grieve your loss. I struggle with the trauma of your death. But I understand that it was your choice in that moment and nothing I or anyone else could have done to change it.
Submission 11
Dear Christopher,
I miss your hugs. Your voice. Your laugh. Your stupid jokes. Your cheesy grin. I miss my brother. I missed the signs. I wish I helped. So much regret.
Submission 10
Dear Alexis,
There are so many things I feel like I need and want to say to you. I want to call you just to chat like we used to. I want to hear your laugh again. Man, I loved your laugh. I can hear it as I type these words. I want to see you with my babies. Listen to you while you talk with them, read to them, cuddle them.
I want to rewind time and go back to when you and I were little and dad would make way too much popcorn on movie nights. I felt like I could tell you anything. You were always so supportive and my biggest cheerleader.