disbelief

Have you ever wondered what hurts the most, saying something and wishing you had not, or saying nothing and wishing you had? In answer to that, both hurt equally Neve. As your anniversary hurtles towards us at the speed of light I still think of our many conversations and of course the ones we didn’t have.
The past few weeks have been so hard, working in school the old displays have to be mercilessly ripped down in anticipation of fresh new displays for the autumn term and taking down those displays that I put up only last year served to remind me of the year that had past, a year of heartbreak and change beyond recognition. I remember putting up certain displays as if it were yesterday, the relief I felt at the end of term, happy another school year had ended and I was looking forward to the holidays, time spent with those I loved. We’d just lost your uncle John but with his death came a sense of relief because the active, witty, intelligent man that we knew and loved was no longer suffering, trapped inside a body that had let him down, he was free from the pain and discomfort he’d endured from the cancer for twelve months. As I pulled down that penguin display I had tears in my eyes and I had to go out of sight for a short time to let the tears flow. To me, that display signified happiness and innocence. Strangely that feeling seems so alien to me now, as if it happened to a character in some book I read or in a different lifetime and I suppose it did. Yet it was just twelve months ago, 365 days, 8760.01 hours, each one spent thinking about you and what happened with total disbelief.
Who would have thought that after all this time I would still struggle with the reality of it all. Here one minute gone the next. I wish you’d talked to us Neve. Your words, a bit anxious, enter my head a million times a day. Were you ashamed you felt anxious, therefore trying to play it down. I don’t know why you couldn’t tell me and that adds to the disbelief. A young woman who told me pretty much everything and you couldn’t tell me the most important thing of all.
Do you think we deserved this Neve, this life sentence you handed to us on that warm August afternoon. Do you think we deserved to live the rest of our days thinking about what went wrong and about the beautiful caring person that broke our loving home and our hearts into a thousand pieces. I don’t think the thought of us and what we would endure after you’d gone ever entered your head, I think the pain you felt from the anxiety and depression were so intense and those voices telling you nobody loved you, nobody cared were greater than any love you had for anybody or anything and thats the tragedy of it all, if you’d opened up and told me how bad it was you’d still be here, I’d have moved mountains.
“Suicide doesn’t end the pain, it just passes it on to someone else” I have mixed feelings about that quote, its dismissive of the disease that killed you but its also true, in a way. After losing any loved one there is some amount of pain, but we wouldn’t say, dying of cancer doesn’t end the pain it passes it on to someone else would we? I think even now, in this ‘its ok to not be ok’ generation we are still portraying suicide as a selfish act, its almost like we’ve decriminalised it by taking away the word commit but haven’t quite grasped that depression and anxiety are like any other illness that can kill you if left unchecked. The truth of it is, having survived a year without your laugh or smile, your voice . . . without you, I can honestly say that the intense pain we feel, all the emotions, the hindsight, the infinite what ifs, never go away, but that wasn’t your pain being passed on to me, thats my own pain at the thought of never seeing you again, the fact that your story ended before it even had the chance to begin. Suicide moulds the pain of disbelief.
So as your anniversary fast approaches I feel more and more driven to tell people to speak up if they’re feeling anxious or depressed. I knew very little about either illness last year, this year I live with anxiety myself. I’ve reached out and I’m having counselling.
We now live in a fast paced, technology driven, over confident and egotistical world thats creating the right breeding ground for the hateful bacteria of anxiety and depression to breed, but the cure is so very simple. Talk. Speak up. Be brave. I wish you’d told me Neve, there was nothing you couldn’t tell me, or so I thought.

Miss you beyond the stars Nevey,

Mum x