This Suicide Prevention Day, one of our community members, Sarah, tells her story of losing her son to suicide.
Being open about difficult feelings can be incredibly hard, but Sarah’s message is that no one should struggle alone and there’s help out there no matter what you might be going through.
Samaritans are available to listen at any time, day or night - you can call them from any phone for free on 116 123 or find more details on their website.
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Sarah’s son worked as a bar manager. “He loved all the fancy clothes - the dicky bows and the cummerbunds,” she says. “He used to iron on the floor without a board - I’ve never seen anything like it! You could shave with the crease on his trousers, it was so sharp.”
As a boy, he was very caring. “One day, I was cleaning his room and I could hear something scratching - I thought it might be a mouse,” says Sarah. “I very gently pulled out the drawer and there was a bird in there with a broken wing. He’d put wet bread in there and was trying to nurse it back to health!”
As a young man, Sarah’s son had a great sense of humour, loved cooking and worshipped his nieces. “He didn’t care who was around - he’d put his arms around me and say ‘I love you, Mam’. Or he’d grab me from behind and say, ‘Do you love me?’ I’d say, ‘Enough to get you by!’” says Sarah. “But he was sensitive, too - he hurt easy.”
Sarah’s son took his own life shortly after going through a break-up. “I remember every word of that conversation we had the afternoon before it happened,” says Sarah. “There was an awful sadness in him, but I never thought he’d do anything like that. Afterwards, the ambulance man came to me and said, ‘I’m sorry love - this is the one part of my job I hate. I couldn't bring him back.’” He was 27 when he died.
Sarah says the devastation was made worse by people’s fear of talking about suicide. “A lady from my church said, ‘He probably didn’t mean to do it. You could always tell people that.’ I couldn’t believe it. My child was gone, I was utterly devastated - I didn’t care what anyone thought.”
Being open about hard feelings is crucial, Sarah says. “I talk about it with all of my grandchildren. I say to them nothing can ever be bad enough for you to do something like that. Tomorrow it’ll be a tiny little problem, or it’ll feel better if you share it with your parents or granny or whoever. No matter what’s happened or what you’ve done, you’ll never be alone. You’ll always have someone to come to.”
After her son’s death, a priest friend suggested to Sarah that she write her feelings down. She wrote a series of letters and poems, and a friend typed them up to create a book called Letters to my Son. The result is a beautifully-written, moving collection detailing how time has passed and how Sarah’s grief has changed over time.
“I don’t know how I wrote them,” says Sarah. “I didn’t have hardly any schooling. The words just came out of me. I wish there’d been something like it when I needed it. I hope it can bring anyone in the same situation comfort.”
What would Sarah say to someone facing bereavement by suicide? “I’d have to be honest,” she says. “You’ll feel some days like you’re in the pits of hell. In fact, you’ll go down into hell many times, but you will come out of it.”
“Eventually, you’ll have a day where you hear the birds or feel the sun on your face. There are good days. Better days. One day, you’ll be able to cope with it.”
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Huge thanks to Sarah for sharing her story. We are working to share a copy of Sarah’s book Letters to my Son with anyone in the LIHH who might want to read it – if you’d like to know more, contact the office on 0113 262 5614 or email info@lihh.org.
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