Nikita Frazer’s mother Hazel died by suicide five years ago. To mark World Suicide Prevention Day and in the hope of helping others she has written this touching letter to her mother for The Impartial Reporter.

Dear Mum


This is my letter to you. It has been five years now, and it still hurts today as much as it did then.
You never really got to see the real beauty of life and all that it brings. I often wonder if you ever sat outside taking in a deep breath in the sun, listening to the birds sing a song. Did you ever take time out for yourself? I guess we will never know. 
Life has taught me a lot since you left us. It has taught us that no matter what hits you in life you can face anything because the worst thing has already happened, we lost you. We lost our go to person when things go wrong in life. You always put things right. We lost someone we could have a laugh with when we were sad. As we go on in life we still get wee signs and that’s nice. I still find feathers at my feet when I am out walking, I even got a tattoo. I wonder what you would of thought of that. 
You have missed so much Mum, you never got to see Zara grow up to be the beautiful young woman she is today, you would be so proud. 
You never got to see Mark achieve what he has today, you never got to see our partners. I wonder what advice you would have to give. You will never see us get engaged, married or even see your first grandchild. Even though we were young when you died there is still a lot of firsts to overcome. You never got to see me pass my test or start my new job this week. It’s hard to understand everyday why.
Only God knows why, but I wish we knew down here because it would be easier to live with. Suicide leaves behind so many unanswered questions to the ones left behind. Suicide took you away Mum. It leaves a lot of anger behind for the family. I do believe there are two sides and that is hard to live with. 
One side is this person is very sick; they saw no other way out. The other side is selfishness. Why did you not fight everyday? Why did you leave behind such a mess? That is hard to deal with. 
The missed birthdays and new adventures is hard to take, too. You have missed so much and sometimes I feel guilty smiling and laughing living on and you are not here to see any of it. What did suicide do to us? It rocked our world. It made us sad, angry, guilty, ashamed and every possible feeling your body could feel made us feel it. I don’t think you ever be the same person again as a result. You build a new version of yourself and that’s ok because it makes you strong, it gives you a backbone that you never thought you would have.
Mark, Zara and I have made a pact; we promised each other after you died that no matter how hard life gets to tell each other so that what happened in 2013 will not happen again, to talk to each other. I often wonder that morning why you did not talk to us, or talk to me, because life would have been so different in so many ways.
First of all, we wouldn’t be asked ‘how long is your Mum dead now?’ Or told just to ‘get on with it’. You just don’t get on with it, it’s not that simple. Or another one is ‘how’s your Mum keeping?’ You stand there awkward because you are not here, and someone has let slip and they didn’t mean to, and we know they meant well. The pain never goes away, we carry it everyday and we put on a mask to face the world. Some days you are feeling good then out of nowhere it hits you. It may be a song on the radio or the smell of a perfume, a child walking down the street with their Mum or talking to one of your friends.
We will never get to see you grow old. 45 is a young age to go and I always thought it was old, but it really isn’t. You are 50 now and that was another milestone that we missed. We often wonder what you would look like today. Would your hair still be blonde, the colour I dyed it, or is it grey? Would you have wrinkles, or not? It’s the little things. Would you still have a love for country music? Would you still sing Nathan Carter with me in the car? Would you still love to dance? 
We didn’t only lose a Mother, our Father lost his wife. It changed Dad, Mum. He had to pick up the pieces and raise three children. It wasn’t easy for Dad while trying to get the work done on the farm. He has to be Mum and Dad every day, but your death has brought us all much closer. We tell Dad everything just like we would have told you. 
Life is forever changed, but life also has to go on, we also have to remember that we have a life to live and it is ok to let go of the guilt and the anger bit by bit because it will only wreck us. You wouldn’t want us feeling like that. You would want us to grab life by the hands and live it. 
I promise you this, Mum, you will never be forgotten, that simply will not happen.
And to anyone who may be reading this today this is my message to you: life is so very fragile, and you never really know when the last goodbye is. That is why you must never take it for granted, or forget how important it is and how lucky we are to be here.
Suicide is not the way anyone’s story in life should end, trust me, this family knows. So look out for one another, speak out if you need to and be kind always because at the end of the day, we are all walking each other home. 


Love, 
Nikita x