Category Archives: Letters

Brother,
Its been one year today since you took your own life leaving a gaping wound in those you left behind. Here are some of the things that you have missed since you took your own life.
– Jameson was born just after Labor Day. You would have been an uncle again. You never got to change a newborn diaper, feed him a bottle, see him climb over all the dogs, learn how to crawl, and start to form words. He now has 5 teeth, is starting to take his first steps, and stating to word associate. I’m sure you would have had a blast with him especially in the pool.
– Madelyn you missed Madelyn’s ballet recital. Mom and Dad came to see her part but had to leave before the whole thing was over so they could drive up to PA and bury your ashes. She recently had her 5th birthday party, and is learning to ride her new bike. She starts real school in two weeks and is excited. She remembers you and will mention you every once in a while mostly connected to either how you took her to Busch Gardens, or when mom is really sad.
– Kim and I are fine. Both working more than we really want to. We bought a house, best one that fit our desires, and moved out of Mom and Dad’s, so now the guest room and your room is open. We have an awesome basement that I know you would have tried to move into, and a pool and playground less than a 5 min walk.
– Bethany started her trip around the world. She’s been traveling since April and should have a bunch of stuff to post on her travel blog. I can’t wait till she gets home and can share some stories.
– Mom and Dad are dealing. They have good days and bad. They love Jameson, but I know it hurts them to see him because he reminds them of you. Dad still hasn’t been up to the room above the shop. Bethany and mom went in and cleaned the room, took down all the stuff you had on the walls, did your laundry, etc. Dad gave away your motorcycle. As the last project you guys were working on together he couldn’t see finishing it. The house you and he were renovating is almost done. With you not there to help it took a lot longer and Dad’s trying to decide if they still want to manage it on Airbnb or just sell it outright. It turned out really nice and you would have liked it (I know you were planning on living there for at least a little while).
Those are the highlights. I’m not going to talk much about your funeral because that’s not for you. Mom and Dad had you cremated, lots of their friends and some of yours came. Most of the family was there at some point and it was nice to see everyone. Holidays were pretty shitty, Halloween was an afterthought, I don’t even remember thanksgiving (I think we did an awkward meal at mom and dads), Mom didn’t want to celebrate Christmas so we spent it with friends. Since our birthdays were a week apart it made my birthday kind of an afterthought. I just asked Kim and neither of us can remember anything about it.
I’m still angry at you. I know we didn’t get along for a good portion of our lives. I wanted good things for you; I wanted you to be successful, to find someone that you cared about and cared about you too, to have children of your own and see you with them. But instead you ended your own life. You left all of your problems behind for others to deal with. Like I told your body at the viewing, I hope one day I can get past my anger, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you.

At first, I was incredulous. The news fell upon my unexpectant ears and I completely disassociated, I was calm from one place but in reality I was screaming. My fists were banging into my head. I was out of control. Didn’t you realise how much you were loved?
I thought it was a conspiracy. I thought it was a lie. I thought our family was lying to us. Until I saw you. I saw you and your dead hands and unmoving chest. I saw you and I collapsed to the floor crying, all I can see now is those hands. Didn’t you realise how much we loved you?
We carried your coffin at your funeral. My legs were shaking, my heart had fallen and slipped out from beneath my kneecaps. Your son sat in the pew, watching his aunties carry his father to be burned. I have never felt pain like I did that day. The pure unparalleled pain taints me still, it burns white hot right through me everyday. Didn’t you realise how much I loved you?
I will never understand how your reasoning outweighed the reasons to stay, but I understand the turmoil you were in. I just wish I could have saved you, I could have helped you. I wish you had thought of the last time and realised this wasn’t the only option. I wish you could have remembered sitting beside your little sister and supporting her through her suicidal impulses. I wish you could have remembered protecting her against everything in the world, even when you had no power to. I wish you understood the boundless love I have for you.
I miss you and I don’t think anybody will truly understand the depth of this feeling of pure loss. I love you still and always, I’m so sorry that you didn’t think there were other options.

K,
Its been, like, 2 years since I last wrote you on this site. It’s coming up on year four without you and I still feel your absence everywhere. I still panic everytime I smell anything that resembles the flowers at the funeral home. There’s just this gaping hole that’s never going to be filled and it always hurts. I’ve been on this planet longer than my big sister. I’m about to turn 21 and I’m starting college but it doesn’t feel like I’m going anywhere. I feel like
The day you died, my clock just stopped and I’m doing things to better my life but I don’t feel anything other than the pain of your loss.
There were so many times that I wanted to die growing up and I never did it because I thought we had some special connection that nobody could touch and if I died it would ruin you but the longer i exist without you, the more I wonder if you even cared about me at all.
You did the worst thing anyone’s ever done to me. Not when you took your last breath but when you said your final goodbyes to me. When I thought I would see you in a week or two but you were already making your plans. When you looked me right in the eye with no remorse that day outside your dorm and you held me and told me to be good to myself and told me you loved me knowing you were about to destroy me.
You’re the only person in this world I allowed myself to get close to and you took that from me.
And I dont believe in an afterlife and stuff but I feel like I’m actually talking to you when I write to you and I worry that you are still around somewhere and can see this and regret killing yourself and I’m hurting your feelings when I get angry at you.
Idk I just have my own mental illness that was similar to yours and, ultimately, I’m in control of my own actions but I also personify my own mental illness so much that I can’t decide if I should be mad at you for killing yourself or mad at your mental illness for killing you.
Either way I still love you. That’s why it hurts so much.
Miss you,
G

You were both too young to go, and I wish you would have gotten a real chance to see that. I wish I’d visited more often, told you how much you meant to me. I knew you were struggling, and so was I, but never could I have imagined a life without you. 24 and 21 years old, why didn’t I do more? I should have. We all should have.
Life without you is slowly starting to function, but it’s not the same. Not by a long shot. It never will be. Your dog Björn, your stupid dog, he barks a lot and I should take him on long walks but I just can’t bring myself to do it. And Jens.. how I wish we could have had more time together, to get to know each other. Our sister is hurting so much, and so am I. My only comfort is that you have Björn to take care of you, wherever you are.
I do my best at work, with my friends and with school that’ll start up again soon. I wish you were her to see all that in person, and so that you could pet that damned dog. I think he misses you, and I think your cat misses you Jens. We all do.
In 9 months my life has changed in ways I never thought. I honestly thought I’d be the dead one and you’d be writing letters to me on the internet. But I see now that that would never have been possible, you both struggled too hard and didn’t recieve the help you so desperatly needed.
I just want you to know that I miss you more than anything, and that I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. You’re my heroes, and you bet I’ll carry on the legacy. I’ll tell your story a million times to a million people if need be. You’re worth it, you were always worth it.
With great love, and many tears.
-Your sister

Dear Jonas
I Wish I told you how much I loved you, I wish we could do more stuff together than hanging out at your apartment or watching series, I wish I said yes more often to playing computer games together rather than No, I Wish I knew what you were thinking and how you were feeling before you hanged yourself, I Wish you felt that you could speak to me about how you were feeling and let me help you. Dear Jonas my brother, I wish you never did it.

Today is Father’s Day and two months since you took your life. You were a good dad to your daughter and I wish I had told you that when you were alive. I wish I had called you on Father’s Day to wish you Happy Father’s Day. I read one of your journals and I know during your struggles, that you would write over and over that you have to be a good dad. I know you didn’t want to fail there and that you loved her and she was so important to you. She loves you and misses you too. I found a text message she sent you after you passed on your phone that she missed you. You were a good dad, a good son, a good brother, a good coach and a good man. I wish I had told you all of that over and over again and I wish you had believed it and knew it too. I wish you were here. I love and miss you so much!

Dear Jerri,

Everyday I hurt for you. It’s only been two weeks…..My emotions are all over the map….sadness and grief, anger, guilt, disappointment, relief….but always love, regardless of the past.

I am sad that you never lived…you never experienced happiness and all the good things that life had to offer as an adult–love, travel, kids, a warm loving home, a career, a new car, pedicures, holidays, family. I am sad that you were alone. I am angry that whenever anyone, including mom and I, tried to help, you pretty much spit in our faces and chose to do the wrong things in life. I am angry that you chose the drugs and lied to us over and over again. I am angry that you hurt mom and me all over again….. I am guilty because I wonder what I could have done differently. Maybe I should have kept you here with us, but I couldn’t….. I set you up in apartment that was the nicest thing that you ever had in your life! I furnished it! All you had to do was show up and live. I am guilty because I was angry with you leading up to your death, even when I was helping you. Could I have been kinder? I am guilty because I should have hugged you that last day. I wanted to, but you had a bad cold. I didn’t want to get sick…but I should have hugged you. I still can hear you telling me you loved me. I am guilty because I got that apartment for you. Did I send you to your death???? I ask myself that every single day, even when you told me that you were going to be ok. I am disappointed because I wanted to help you and give you the things that you didn’t have. I am relieved that you aren’t under the influence of those damned drugs. I hate what they did to you. You aren’t hurting anymore. You aren’t sad anymore. I am relieved that I don’t have to worry about you anymore–and that makes me even more guilty! You said this world had nothing for you. I beg to differ….all you had to do was allow me to help you.

But in the end, I love you…no matter how hurt and angry I am, I love you. You were my sister…..although we were both so different, I love you. I hated the shell of a person you became because of the drugs. That was not you. I know you loved mom, me, my sons…..but life was too much and you were tired.
I hope you have found the peace that you needed. I hope that you are once again whole in body, mind and spirit.
I love you, my big sister. Until we meet again…..
–your little sister, Kristi Lynn

Katey,

There are so many things I wish I could’ve told you before you went. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been going through the cycle of being angry, feeling hopeless, and depressed. I see our family falling apart since you’ve been gone. I’ve been mad because of how you did it, there was no thought put in to it, just a drugged pull of a trigger. I’ve been mad because you left behind your four year old daughter. You left her motherless, just like you had been for most of your life. I don’t think it’s what you wanted, in fact I know that’s not what you wanted, and I’m sad because I know it happened because you were scared. You felt so alone in that single moment.

We all have survivors guilt over here in a sense. Dad’s blaming himself for not locking the doors to the house. I’m blaming myself for not calling to tell you Happy Mother’s Day earlier that morning. I thought to myself “I’ll call her tonight”, completely taking for granted your timing here on earth.

Telling your daughter, my niece, that day that mommy was in heaven was the hardest day of my life.

I’m thankful I didn’t go in to the room and say goodbye to you. I didn’t want my last memory of you to be that. I’ll hold on to the last memory of you eating chicken fingers on the porch and your daughter flying her kite as we talked about life and the little things.

Katey my world has been flipped upside down since you’ve been gone. I hear your daughter talk day and night about how she loved her mommy, and the little things mommy used to do. I hold her so much closer and pray she never feels the way you did in that moment. I pray when she’s older and finds out what really happened to mommy that she never doubts your love for her. Katey, I just wish I could hug you or simply hear you call my name from downstairs one more time.
I’m trying to be strong for everyone else, but it leaves me alone at night with no one to be strong for me.

This letter to you is all over the place and I have a thousand more things to say, but for now this will do. I’ll continue to take care of your little girl and never let her forget you Katey. You are forever so loved.

Hey Tash,
I’ve rewritten this letter countless times, in my head, in blogs, and now here where I’ll hopefully finish. I miss you. TJ misses you. I’m sure your girls do too, they loved their mommy so much. I don’t see them anymore. Since you left us, everything has fallen apart.
Mom is 20 hours away and can’t focus on anyone but herself. My dad is practically a drunk now. TJ is so full of guilt that I’m not sure if he’s going to make it. Adam took the girls and we haven’t heard from them since.
I’m sorry I was never there, I’m sorry I didn’t go to Ulta with you or to get pedicures. I’m sorry I never kept in touch after I moved, I’m sorry I missed your last birthday so I could go to a football game. I’m sorry for not being a sister to you. I’m sorry for not being more patient.
Why did you leave? Why did you overdose? Why couldn’t you have gone somewhere for help instead?
I have so much to say to you Tasha, I just want to hear your voice and tell you how sorry I am. I want to tell you how proud I am about how well you were doing before all of this. It’s already been over a year but all the pain is still inside me, and it won’t go away. I need to talk to you. I need to hear you.
I love you Tash,
Hope

Dear Mathapelo
Why did you leave me, why did you take your life? I wish you could have told me your intentions. I miss you so much. Why did you leave tour daughter, you loved her so much but you left her. You were supposed to have not killed yourself, i need my sister and my friend. I have no one to talk to, a lot is happening in my life but one good thing is that I now have a baby girl and i wish you have met her. Please help me to understand and stop crying, its now 7years but it still hurts so much. How do i accept you are gone forever?
I miss you dear sister
Your sister
LERATO