Every year as I turn the page over on the calendar to July I get this sick, anxious feeling. I usually draw a heart with angel wings on that date – the 10^th July – or a heart with teardrops – how else do you mark the anniversary of the day your son died.

14 years ago today was your last day on this earth.

A few days after that fateful late night door knock which brought the news you had ended your life in a field in Ely, I travelled to Cambridge from Cornwall. Only 3 months before I moved here to start my dream life. I met the policeman who was called out when you were found and he handed me a manilla envelope. I opened it and pulled out a notebook I had given you – I turned to the first page and was shocked to see my hand writing – ‘there is nothing to stop you having an amazing life’ – on the next page you had written a few scribbled thoughts of what was going through your mind on that day – your last day.

You wrote ‘today is the most satisfying day of my life’. That was so hard to read; it still stabs me in the heart today, 14 years later. Did  you think of me at all? I’m incredibly sad that this is what was going through your mind on the last day of your life. No ‘sorry mom, I love you’.

You left without saying goodbye to me, your mum, your sole caregiver, protector, cheerleader and nurturer since you were 2 years old, when your dad absented himself from your life.

How long had you been planning it? I last spoke to you on the phone a couple of days earlier. I was having trouble installing something on my computer and didn’t know the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit…. I joked in your eulogy – ‘who is going to help me with my computer problems now?’. I wonder what people thought of me as I read it. I didn’t shed a tear and was even joking in parts. What they didn’t know was that I had read it 50 times before so I could get through it without crying at your funeral.

Why didn’t you come to me and ask for help? I have no idea what led you to the point where you thought this was the best solution to whatever turmoil was going on in your life. I have found peace by accepting I will never know. I thought you were going through normal 23 year-old ‘finding your way in life, problems. You dropped out of University – went back, then dropped out again but I never admonished you.

Maybe  you just couldn’t see a way forward – a way to fit in with what was expected. You never would have survived doing a 9-5 job, paying your bills – that was all too mundane for you. I used to say ‘you’ll never survive in the real world’ when you wouldn’t get out of bed or you were up late at night online gaming. How those words haunt me now.

I would have supported you financially until you were 50 if necessary but you wouldn’t have wanted that. I still have all the texts between us on my phone, but strangely when I went to look a few weeks ago all the texts from February 2011 up until when you left have mysteriously disappeared. Maybe that is because it won’t help me to read them.

But this is what we do – this is what we live with. I run a support group for parents who have lost their child to suicide, over 500 of us, and this is what we live with even after 14 years we have days like this, especially around the anniversary. All the dark destructive thoughts start creeping in, the whys the what ifs the if onlys….even though we know they are totally pointless.

I think I knew you better than anyone, even though towards the end you didn’t tell me anything about your life, I had to meet your friends for the first time at your funeral. They didn’t know you had dropped out of University, you kept up a façade right to the end. You didn’t know that they loved you unconditionally like I did. You always did bury your head in the sand, or in your case under the duvet, and wouldn’t face up to problems. You would just lie and try and evade any confrontation until the last minute.

But I do know that if I asked you why now, you probably wouldn’t be able to articulate it. You could probably write about it, in fact I did find some notes you had scribbled in your Uni notebook about 6 months before you left. You were reflecting on why you never felt any real emotion about anything. You said you only ever felt a high when beating someone in League of Legends or some other game.

I don’t believe you thought much about the impact on me – not because you didn’t care but because you had just checked out of life and got to the point where you thought it would be better for everyone to leave than face up to reality. In hindsight I believe you had neurodivergent issues – or is this just a story I tell myself to try and rationalise it.

At the end of the day – July 10^th is when I got the news although I believe you left at midnight the day before. Here I am 14 years later still trying to make sense of something where no sense can ever be made.

I don’t blame you, I don’t blame myself – I know there are thousands of young people in the UK taking the same course of action as you did for a myriad of different reasons and circumstances.

Us parents live daily with waves of grief; most days I can get through without thinking much about it. I think of you constantly – every day – but I don’t want to think about how you left or why, as that can lead me down a dark road. So I might write a blog/journal – like I’m doing today. Then I’ll put my make-up on and go out and get on with my life.

I became determined early on not to allow the end of your life, to be the end of mine. In many ways my new life started when you died because I am not the same person now.

I know life can change with a knock on the door at 10 pm one Sunday night – I know I can live through my worst nightmare. I’m brave and fearless. I don’t fear illness, death, poverty – because I’ve already experienced the worst thing that could ever happen.

So I’ll keep living bravely, fearlessly and unapologetically – I’m fairly sure that’s what you would want’. I’m reasonably sure you loved me and appreciated all the things I did to try and keep your life on track. I didn’t fail but the world failed you and your life was 23 years 6 and a half months.

I’ll always love you and I’ll keep on living the best life I can – but these anniversaries are tough.

Onwards and upwards – ‘to infinity and beyond’, as Buzz would say.