Dear Rebecca,

Today has shaken me to my core. I haven’t felt this deep pain like this since the day we found our we had lost you. In the UK for any suicide the police have to apparently write up a report of what happened and when and then there also needs to be an investigation in order to rule out any malicious and to ensure that this was intended to be a suicide. From what I understand in normal times (what is normal anymore?!) you are supposed to get the police report within a month of the family member passing away. However, today it showed up in our inbox – 10 months after you have gone.  

I sat there for what felt like forever but was probably only 5 minutes and felt sick to my core. I started shaking. I felt so conflicted and so scared. Did I want to open the attachment? Did I want to know what was in there? Would it answer the questions that I had? Would it make me feel better? Would it make me feel worse?

Well, I eventually opened it and I don’t say this lightly - the content actually broke me. It explained every detail of where you went, how you got there and what you did. In that moment the 10 months of grief which I had worked so hard on finding coping mechanisms through grief counselling and speaking to other who had lost siblings to mental illness and suicide felt like I had gone back to square one again. I had never felt so sock in my life, and that’s saying something as I had 18 weeks of hyperemesis when I was pregnant with my son!

Everything did go back o square one. The nightmares that I had worked so hard on getting rid of came back, the night sweats and shakes came back. The random moments when during a busy work day, the content of the report would come back into my mind and I would have to be late to meetings as I would have to try and breathe through panic attacks.

And as if the police report wasn’t bad enough, they also have to do a legal investigative hearing as well where they read out the police report and also look back at your medical history. This was scheduled for 2 days after we received the police report. I had many conversations with Adam (my husband) and my amazing grief councillor as I had it in my head that if I didn’t go that I would be letting you down. But both Adam and my grief councillor had multiple conversations with me to say that this is only going to do harm. I know all of your medical history as at points of your care I had to be your next of kin and I had to sign off medication and administer medication so I knew your medical history almost off my heart and I had read the police report. They were adamant that going to the investigation was only going to hurt me more. So, I am sorry to say Rebecca, I did not dial into that investigation. As much as I agreed with Adam and the councillor that I wouldn’t be wise for me to go I still felt bad that I wasn’t there. I’m not sure what tangible good I would have done if I was there but I just want you to know that if I had the strength, I would have gone but I just couldn’t. I think it would have broken me even more and for me it was just a step too far.

But I want you to know, that doesn’t take away from how much I miss you every day and how much I love you with all my heart and more.

I hope you’re dancing up there with all the rainbows!

All my love 

Esther x