Submission 183
Dear Adrian
Hi Adrian, it is that time of year when we should be celebrating your birthday. The 27th September 1984 is when you arrived into the world and the 7th April 2019 is when we lost you. You are thought about and missed everyday.
Submission 182
Dad
There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think of you. Almost four years since you lost your battle and I still search for you in the supermarket and file through the memories etched in my brain. I can’t escape the gut wrenching feeling of missing you. I can physically feel my heartstrings tug when I think of what I’ll achieve without you there to watch me.
Submission 181
Dear husband
We miss you so much, I keep pretending you are just away with work. But deep down I know you aren’t. I have to keep explaining to our child why you aren’t here. He’s 3 and I know I can’t tell him everything but I also don’t want to lie. We miss you so much. He has now missed you longer than you were alive. He always asks about his daddy. It doesn’t get easier to explain to him. We see you with all the butterflies that come around. Things happen and I wish you were here to talk to. Despite what happened I love you so much and I never wanted this.
Submission 180
Dear Sean
There are no words that could have described the absolute pain and heartbreak I felt when you left this world. I felt a physical pain in my chest, my world was shattered.
Submission 179
To my baby brother
It's hard to believe that five years have passed since that fateful day, July 29, 2018. It was the day when you chose to leave it all behind, seeking freedom from the struggles that burdened you. Little did I know that behind your enigmatic smile, you were silently carrying such profound pain.
Submission 178
To my brother Pete
I can’t put my finger on what I miss about you. I often just sit and think about you. I’m lucky to have so many memories of our childhood, and I think about how you always wanted to show me and tell me everything you knew about the world…like you were preparing me the whole time for when you leave. I still use all that you showed me…so you’re never out of my thoughts and I often think. I go fishing to clear my mind, but only think about how you taught me to fish. I listen to music constantly to exercise the emotions that I can’t always show…and it’s always listening to music that you played to me when we were young.
Submission 177
To my younger brother,
As the days go on, I continuously wonder why. Why did you have to feel the way that you did?
Submission 176
To my best,
I miss you. All the time. I miss your loud laugh, your irritating questions and your kindness. You were the fuel that kept things moving, always keen to organise the next holiday or something fun. You challenged me when I needed it and picked me up when I was down. I miss being understood in the way you got me. I don't think I'll ever get used to you not being here. I never thought you'd be the one to go. Somedays I feel like I miss you so much I could just evaporate, other days everything just feels unbearably heavy. I flip between feeling the pressure to live life for the both of us and actually not wanting to move away from this pain in a fear it's like leaving you behind.
Submission 175
Dear Dad,
I miss you so much it hurts. I am going through such an exciting time in my life at the moment which has allowed me to reflect on my own thoughts and emotions. Whilst I am super happy and grateful to be experiencing what I am, there is just a constant thought in the back of my head of ‘I wish I could tell my dad what’s happening.’
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.