69 days. I am angry.

I feel so angry with the world, and everyone in it for that matter. I am mostly angry with myself. The guilt feels unbearable. I could never imagine a feeling so heavy as this, as all of this, all of these feelings. I am angry that this is my life. I am angry that I have been left in a world that I no longer want to be a part of. I am angry that I didn’t encourage you to talk to me. I am angry that you didn’t talk to me, but not at you. I am angry at me. I am angry at me that you couldn’t ask for help. I am angry at myself that I didn’t help you.

You don’t feel like you can ask for help?

You don’t feel like you can talk?

First I spoke to you when I found you, ‘breathe, breathe!’ I screamed at you, ‘fucking breathe!’.

Then I rocked on the floor and prayed to anything and everything while I listened to the emergency services trying to resuscitate you.

Then I screamed and howled at the entire world when they told me there was nothing more they could do.

I spoke to a paramedic who said this would be the worst day of my life, no day will ever be as bad as this, the days after will not be as hard. He lied.

I spoke to the police officer for 2 hours, vomiting in between, who took every last detail of what happened for a statement.

I spoke to your brother and sister to tell them what had happened and listened to them while the world crumbled.

I spoke to family and friends and school and work to give them the gut wrenching news.

I spoke to the funeral director to make arrangements for what would be a day as equally horrific as the day you died.

I spoke about your coffin, the clothes you would wear, music, cars, cremating my own child. Imagine that if you will.

I dropped off your favourite shoes. I remembered when you first got them and you had gone out and dirtied them and tried to sponge them clean. I walked around in them in a little side room, trying to feel close to you, while you were in a coffin in the next room.

I saw the end of your willow tree coffin as the door opened to the chapel of rest and felt my legs give way beneath me. I dropped to the floor and thought I would die in that moment. I remained on the floor until I was encouraged some time later, to crawl out.

I spoke to the minister who would deliver your funeral service.

And then I spoke at your funeral. My own child’s funeral. Standing alongside the selected coffin with you inside, wearing the clothes I had chosen for you that were stained with my tears.

Then I spoke with the never ending amount of companies and organisations who have to be informed of this god awful tragedy.

I spoke with the doctor who came out to give me something to help me sleep.

I spoke to the mental health team about how I couldn’t go on.

I spoke to helplines for all of us for someone to please help us. No one can help us because no one can bring you back.

I spoke to the investigator who explained what will happen at the inquest.

I had to sit, yet again, in the funeral directors, listening to how your ashes were currently in a cardboard urn, inside a plastic bag that was fastened shut with staples.

I spoke to the coroners office about your toxicology report.

I spoke to them again a few days later about your post-mortem findings. There is no gentle way to deliver these graphic, detailed findings.

I spoke to a trauma therapist about the flashbacks, the nightmares, and the indescribable torment that runs through my mind, 24 hours a day.

I am broken.

I don’t know how I spoke to all these people, but I did, for you.

Because you matter.

I would trade places with you in an instant.

There is not a person on this earth who deserves this.

There is not a living soul on this planet that would want to have these conversations, rather than conversations about what they can do to help you.

Suicide does not end the pain, it passes it on to someone else. Apparently you should never say this to someone who feels suicidal. I’m not sure I completely agree. Maybe we we should remind people that they matter so much that this is what happens to those they leave behind.