Dear Neve

They say with hindsight comes 20:20 vision. When you told me you were feeling a bit anxious I didn’t know that less than 48 hours later you’d be gone. Instead of doing the normal mum thing of reassuring you and telling you everything would be ok, the thing I always did, the thing that had always been the right thing to do. Instead of that, I should have asked you the true extent of your anxiety, I should have asked if you’d thought about suicide. I would have told you how loved you were and how if you left us every day would be a living nightmare. But I didn’t do any of those things because I didn’t know the true extent of your pain, I didn’t know you’d made your plan to leave us and I didn’t know the true extent of suicide grief. A grief so horrible that even the most ingenious minds amongst us could never imagine how truly terrifying it is. When you lose a loved one to suicide its like an emotional A-bomb has been detonated and the fallout of emotions are just exhausting. They ra...

Looking back on our lives before the horror of that hot Saturday afternoon in August last year is almost like watching a well loved film. I see the characters, I sense the love they all have for each other. I hear the arguments and the laughter. I see the smiles, the tears, the mundane, the pride and the joy of being part of such a loving family. It’s all there and my memory allows me to rewind and keep watching my favourite parts over and over again. When you left, the film came to an abrupt end. It was as if you, the scriptwriter, decided enough was enough, lets end it here. We entered our new lives very different people to those I remember. Of course we look the same and talk the same but our lives have been forever altered by that one tragic act and our memories are so important now as they link us to that old life, the one where you were in it and had the starring role. Since you left I’ve found comfort in looking at photos of our time together. All the christmases we share...

I don’t think there is a collective noun phrase for a group of firsts but if you think about it firsts happen all the time. First birthdays, first job, first love, first home, the list goes on. When we have our first child and you see that first smile, the first time they make a noise that sounds like dada or mama, the first time they crawl or walk, perhaps collectively they should be called a devotion of firsts or an adoration of firsts. I remember clearly the first time you lifted your leg up and found your feet, you were obsessed with your foot and I remember phoning your nan and excitedly telling her you’d found your feet as if no baby in the history of the planet had ever found their feet! That’s what parents do though, we celebrate every smile, every word, every moment. Yes, I think adoration is a particularly good word for these kind of firsts. An adoration of firsts. So what should we call a group of firsts that happen when we've lost someone of great importan...

There are no happy endings. Endings are by far the saddest part of being human. With endings comes grief. Although grief is not a bad thing, grief is love and it helps us heal. If you allow yourself time to grieve properly you can emerge from the grief fog a better person than before with more empathy and understanding for your fellow humans. However, suicide grief is relentless with its infinite what ifs and if only’s Neve. It’s like a thick, heavy, cloying perfume that descended and stuck to our very being as soon as we knew you’d gone. Initially it was like it had anaesthetic properties and made us numb allowing us to deal with all the things your death threw at us. After a while the shock anaesthesia of the grief perfume wore off and we were left broken, overwhelmingly sad shells of our former selves. The mum who on many occasions had to pull the car over because your silly jokes had me crying with laughter now pulls over just because the uncontrollable tears won’t stop. It ...

I’ve often wished I could see you and tell you all about the day that you decided to leave and all the days since. I’ve wanted to put how I’m feeling into words for so long but grief has the weirdest affect on your brain. One day you’re full of words and thoughts and feelings and the next day its like a thick fog descends and you just function, applauding yourself for just getting out of bed.  Time waits for no one, time is precious, time flies, time heals all wounds. It’s a popular thing, time. When we are young we wish our time away and when we get older or ill we always wish there was more time. I often wonder what you thought the day you decided to leave, did you think you’d had all the time you needed? The day you left, time stood still. The seconds turned into minutes, which turned into hours which turned into days, weeks and months. Nothing strange there, yet even though we felt the shift of time and how basically ‘life goes on’ it didn’t for us, it froze on tha...