Dear all,
Today, I write this post, 12 years on. 12 years on from the day we lost a sunflower.
Here’s my take in a “12 days of Christmas” style.
12 years ago today, the police marched into my school, 12 years ago today, there was an ambulance ‘n’ all. 12 years ago today, our lives suddenly shattered, 12 years ago today, your body lay there, scattered. Did you jump straight away or were you standing on the edge? All we got told at school, was that you fell off the balcony ledge. The family assumed you went for it quickly, to end it all just like that. It was the ending for us ‘n’ all, as you became a suicide stat.
11 years ago today, pain ambushes in our lives, as we try to pick up the pieces, the dreaded grief arrives.
10 years ago today, I struggle to stay in school, all alone in the home you left, 2 years from your fatal fall.
9 years ago today, and I’m old beyond my years. Downing bottle after bottle, in attempt to stop my tears.
8 years ago today, my vices turned quite wild. I fed my loss of you, in no way fit for a broken child.
7 years ago today, this eventually started to break me. I lost sight of who I was, wanted to be with you, be … free?
6 years ago today, in recovery from self destruction, I was put on medication, with fear and great reluction.
5 years ago today. I move to London to start uni, make something of myself. I turn to your picture, are you proud? I ask the photo frame on my shelf.
4 years ago today. I miss you my darling mum. It’s not just loss anymore, I’ve realised what you’ve done. Years of anger, sadness and a lack of closure, has the grief just re-begun?
3 years ago today. I may visit your tender ashes, I relive how you die, in agonising flashes.
2 years ago today. A decade has somehow passed. I never knew that time we hugged and smiled, would be the very last.
A year ago today. I sort help, to talk about what actually happened. I miss you. I miss you soo much. My heart heavy, ridden with guilt, your hand I yearn to clutch.
On this very day. I sit here typing this blog. I’ve come a pretty long winded way, from the suffocating fog.
I remember I read an article once. Saying that, 10 years on someone finally had enough of the aftermath of grief they were going through. That they wanted to live and deserved to. It finally clicked that I could have my life too. 10 years on, I began this path to set myself free.
The quote/pic with this blog is a well known one read at funerals. Ofcourse suicide is a loss like no other, but I think it resonates… What happened doesn’t define me anymore. I won’t let it become my shadow.
Sunflowers still grow in fields around me. They glow from afar when needed. I can take mum with me wherever, and I don’t have to live this way anymore.
Learn to grieve, learn to relieve, learn to believe – I’ve got a life to lead.
Abs 🌻
P.S I love you Shelley Mitchell 05/05/2004 and big love to all my family who miss you in our lives. That burning bright smile and that glisten in your eyes.
Xxx