Dear Neve

There are between five and seven stages of grief, depending on which book or blog you read or which google search attracts your attention. Yance Ford wrote “Grief is a very complicated monster, there’s no real exorcism of it. It has a different form every day” I've found that to be so true Neve, when you decided to leave you left the door open and in entered a monstrous entity called grief. What I’ve found is that grief is as individual as the person experiencing it. Let me tell you about my five stages since you left. Denial. I never knew a person could be in shock for such a long time, I remember when the shock lifted a little and the tendrils of overwhelming sadness seeped into my brain, making me cry uncontrollably for hours on end. The aftermath of trying to make sense of a nonsensical situation.  How can you cope with and process something that you truly do not understand? Prior to your death, I didn’t really know anyone who had died by suicide, 10 months before you wen...

We all make wishes. Every human being on earth will have made a wish at some point in their lives. Sadly, wishes become a way of expressing our want for something but not necessarily our need. Things like I wish I had a new car when the car you’re driving still drives perfectly. I wish I had a bigger house when the house you already have is big enough and adequate for your needs, you get the idea. No, the best wishes are the ones from the heart, the ones that express our heartfelt desires. I’ve been thinking a lot about your multitude of wishes Neve and my biggest regret is that you couldn’t have all your wishes come true. You’d often say you wished you had your own pony, I wish that too, would it have made you stay? You would say you wished you lived in Wales, I remember one holiday when you were about fifteen driving around looking for a cottage you’d found on Rightmove and were insisting on seeing, you thought if we saw it we’d be packing up and moving to Anglesey straight away...

As each day passes it gets harder and harder to remember your laughter. I remember your face with ease as I can see it in the hundreds of photographs I have of you, but your voice and laugh, well, thats harder. I have videos but somehow seeing you move and dance and laugh and talk, so alive, makes your absence hurt so much more and some days the sting of those tears that the videos inevitably bring are far too razor sharp to bear.  You were so funny Neve, I miss that. You were so sarcastic but never in a cruel or hurtful way, just quick witted. A sarcastic comment would be followed with that infectious laugh of yours.  You had a real knack of being able to mimic accents too, from your take on who lives in a house like this in the voice of Keith Lemon to I want to blow up the world in the voice of Gru. We miss you doing Zac’s voice too, sadly, he has been left incapable of speech since you left. I remember our road trips with you in charge of the music, singing ...