More Than Life

Nothing More Than Life

I didn't know you well enough to understand. I don't think anybody understands. You were fun, a happy person who seemed in love with her life, was in love with her boyfriend and lived for her children. You'd faced challenges in life but you met them and beat them and were strong and moved on. Everything had come good for you. You'd been away at the weekend in in your photos we see love and laughter.

I wish I'd known you better. I grieve for you anyway, for your children, for the community which has been shaken to the core. You were one of us. You were the last person in the world we'd expect to do this. The rumour mill is busy but on one thing everyone agrees: you took your own life. I have tried to imagine what was going through your mind on Wednesday night. I didn't know you very well but even those who did are bewildered at the way it happened. You must have been in an unspeakably dark place, a place to which none of us can venture, to do what you did. To leave your children like this.

I wish I had spoken to you more. Not because I think I could have helped you. You didn't reach out to any of your friends or family, denying everyone the chance to help you. Nobody could have helepd you because you chose to go and you said goodbye. An innocent Goodnight on your facebook page, shortly after changing your profile picture. We can see how you'd want us to remember you; it is a beautiful picture. You said goodnight and then you went to sleep.

I wish I'd spoken to you about having your daughter to visit. I kept saying I would, on the insistence of my daughter. I want her to come and play, Mummy, she told me over and over and I kept saying Yes, I'll ask her. Just give me a few days. I never did.

I am not grieving like those who knew you so well. I cannot imagine their pain and confusion. I grieve beasue you were one of us, a mum at the school gate. It's difficult, there, if you're not in a talking mood. You'd often come and stand just at the back. I'd say Hi! How are you? And you'd say, Fine. I'm great! And you smiled and you took your girl home. I greive because if you can do this, enybody can. Like Robin Williams you were the life and soul, the smile, the cheer. And behind it, who knows what was there. Not even your nearest knew. I grieve because this could happen again. If you can do this then it could happen to anyone. Any one of those smiling faces we see. We can't stop it. We can't help. We have to accept it, and somehow move on.

I will look mroe carefully now. I will smile and say How are you? And mean it, and I'll look for the answer. Like those Samaritans ads you see everywhere now with captions like, He was always so happy, I never thought he was depressed. There is no way you can tell and this tears me apart. She was one of us, and she could have been any one of us.

I promise to speak to those I love more often. And listen, really listen to what they have to say. Perhaps it is possible to see warning signs. Perhaps we can stop this happening again by really paying attention, and taking ourselves out of our own heads, just for a moment, and really looking at people. And spending time with them. Would it change anything?

You were obviously determined to go. The story of WHY may come out, it may not. Ad this beraks my heart too because whatever we do, whatever we say, if someone wants to go, they will go. This was not a cry for help. And if the rumour mill is true, then you were so determined to go that it didn't matter to you who found you. Even if it was your own children. You are the only person who can explain that. I feel anger for them, for my daughter's little friend with the huge eyes and the cheeky smile, the five year old who has already had to fight some of her own battles. But mostly I feel sorrow, massive, bewildered sorrow, that someone with so much life in her and with so many friends still wanted to leave.

There is nothing more than life. It's ours to do with what we choose, and there is nothing else. We can watch television. We can play with our children. We can eat. We can not eat. We can run, walk, sleep, dream. We can write. We can help people. We can LIVE in any way we choose. This is it. Not a rehearsal, every day could be our last etc etc. All of those wise sayings you can thinkreadwrite. It doesn;t matter unless you truly believe it and live that philosophy every single day. Stop worrying about small stuff. Love your children. Forgive them for childhood behaviour. Stuff the mess in the house, screw the washing up. Hug your children again, phone a friend, write a letter, tell people you love them, look outside of yourself and see the massive picture instead of the miniscule. Connect with people. watch them when they say, I'm fine. Because they might not be. Treasure tha family you love and who love you. forget the ones who don't.

I have recently fallen in love with life again. This week, the week when you decided life wasn't enough any more, I decided that life had to be seized in a way I'd never dared before. I told a secret to someone that I have needed to tell for a long time, and as a result soemthing amazing has happened. But this is another story. I have dared to tell another truth, too, becasue I was ill recently - the very illness which made me tell my daughter that'd I'd chat to you another time. This other time I always thought would exist. I was ill and I ahd a near near death experience which I shall write about another time. It gave me the shove I needed. The next half of my life I am going to live fully. More fully than ever before.

I will forever regret not taking the time to talk to you more. It is my loss entirely. I will learn from it and perhaps your death in some long range way will one day help someone else be saved. I do not know. At the moment the grief in the village is deep and your death is on everyone's lips. The feeling we all have for your beautiful children and thw way we cannot imagine their suffering... it's huge. It's affected everyone in some way.

There is nothing more than life.

I will live more fully now. We all will. All the other mothers hugged their children longer and tighter last night and told everyone else to do the same.

This is just the beginning of the After for everyone. It's day one.

I wish you could read this.

I hope that it may reach someone who needs to read it. I wish someone could have helped you see that there is nothing more than life, but in life there is Everything. There is love and pain and joy and sorrow and laughter and children and miracles and sunsets and chocolate and sex and flowers and wonder and explorationa dn there is always, always a choice. There is always someone to reach out to if you need to. It takes courage to do it (and I speak from the experience of beng in a dark place and being unable to tell anyone I was there, keep the smile plastered on my face and hope nobody would look too deeply.) and I nearly didn't. But I did, and I got help, spoke to a doctor and now I am in love with my life. There is always, always more.

I wish I could have told you that if you are in the dark place know that there is a way out. There are people who can help. If one person reads this, my letter to you and recognises their loneliness in my story of you, perhaps they will think again, understand that there is nothing more than this life but in it there is more than you could possibly believe. I am running out of time here. Just reach out. Try it. We are not alone, none of us. Invisible threads hold us together in a web of love.

Everyone now needs to readjust their world empty of you, live around the void that you have left. Nobody will ever know what went on in inside you on Wednesday night. I hope you are at peace. I wish you hadn't left. I wish you were still here to read this and I hope I've touched at least one person. I've just let it run out, holding an image of you in my mind. Whisper it to everyone, Don't leave like that.

Goodnight, A.