I lost my daughter to suicide. The Holy Spirit has been our comforter

I am reminded of words attributed to Dante Alighieri: “Remember tonight…For it is the beginning of always.” For us, 11 October 2023 was our “beginning of always”. Like many who have lost loved ones to suicide, the date of their death is seared into the memory; a point in time so profound that all memories from before it have become our own personal BCE.

Losing Becky

At 25 years old, I remember feeling that the world was before me. But Becky, at 25, could not see the world as her oyster, and in an act of incomprehensible desperation, decided her life was not worth living. To us, it was a thought process of utmost folly; to her, I have been led to understand, it was a decision that would bring her mental peace. 

There is much we do not know about our daughter’s decision. She left no note. The TV was on, her work laid out on her bed; only hours before she had spoken to my wife, Janine. She had arranged for friends to come over that evening and, half an hour before, tried to ring her ex-boyfriend. On the phone to Janine, she was sad, but did not sound suicidal, and had  turned away offers of help. 

The early morning knock on the door from the police set the whirlwind in motion. Numbness and disbelief, followed by the unwanted confirmation from those who found her, the paramedics who tried to resuscitate her, the mortuary holding her body and the coroner to whom the death had been notified. 

Our first thought was how we would tell her sisters and the wider family. We picked up our middle daughter, Suzy, from work and took her home, ashen-faced and tearful. We left her with her fiancé and close friends. Then, a blur of travel to see Becky’s last grandparent and her uncle, before driving 60 miles to see her big sister and husband. We had not said why we were coming, just that we needed to talk about Becky. Telling them is still a blur, but the raw sadness will never leave me. How we drove home at midnight without an accident, I do not know. 

Since then, we have done what a parent never expects to do for their child. Arrange to bring her body from the Midlands to Surrey, arrange a funeral, view her body (twice), write a eulogy, attend a cremation, bury her ashes, clear her home and transport its meagre contents in boxes back to her old bedroom, inform the authorities, banks and her employer, stop her student loan, wind up her estate, try to take control of her online accounts, liaise with the coroner and apply for probate. 

We changed the venue for the funeral from our new local church to our old one, as Suzy would be married in the former seven months later and we did not want the two to be associated. Becky would have been a bridesmaid. The family were part of every decision and action. We started a WhatsApp group between us just for discussions about Becky, and any feelings, emotions and comments were allowed.

The service of thanksgiving for Becky’s short life brought together friends from her childhood and those from more recent years. The immediate family put the service together and wrote the eulogy, but Janine and I spoke the words. I found that the point of a key, hidden in a fist and pushed into the ball of your thumb, helps to focus the mind. 

We carried her bright red, glittery coffin into the church to the ‘Hogwarts’ hymn’ from Harry Potter and sang worship songs from Rend Collective. Afterwards, my secretary said she wished all religious services were so upbeat. 120 people attended and 250 viewed it online.

God is still God, and he is not diminished by our loss

During this time, we were also arranging Suzy’s wedding. Seven months later, it was a wonderful celebration of a new beginning for our middle daughter (I still cannot say she is now our youngest) and I admire her bravery in dealing with the maelstrom of feelings that this time imposed upon her. Yet the event held up the elephant in the room, our missing bridesmaid. Speaking of Becky in my Father of the Bride speech was one of the hardest few sentences I have had to read and, once again, that key came in useful.

Friends, family, church community and work colleagues have been kind and forbearing. Only six months before Becky’s death, we had moved churches, and after Becky died, both congregations cooked meals and cared for us. We were surprised by the kindness of distant friends but also at the absence of other Christian friends who have still not spoken to us. We presume they just did not know what to say. 

We knew following Jesus meant there must also be purpose in our pain. When we were asked by our new vicar if we would stand and receive a laying on of hands and prayers in the formal Eucharist, we knew it was a first for the church. Our pain also meant new, unexpected relationships. Being bereaved opens doors into the lives of other people who have experienced a similar loss. When we’re asked how we have survived the unimaginable, we try to give testimony of the comfort of God, while not denying the pain that we still feel.

Comforted and comforter

In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that he will send the “Comforter” – a specific name for the Holy Spirit. The Greek word paráklētos is far richer than the English translation. Literally, it means “the one who comes alongside to aid and support”. We can testify to that. At times, his comfort has felt almost tangible, bringing peace in the eye of the hurricane. At other times, support has come from those whom, through the Holy Spirit within them, have come alongside us, ministering God’s peace.

Pastoral care is a ministry listed in Ephesians 4:11. From our observations and involvement in church leadership over many years - and through this experience - we have come to recognise that good pastoral care is a long-term commitment to loving others. It requires compassion, training and self-sacrifice. This contrasts with more complex motivations that fulfil a personal need to care, or leaders who adopt the title ‘pastor’ perhaps without appreciating the depth of its ministry.

As the first anniversary of Becky’s death passed, much of the early concern and contact dwindled. People’s lives moved on, while ours remains stunned by that one, life-changing date. It can feel like society expects those who mourn to get over it within a few months – or, if it takes longer, to at least keep it to themselves. Life is moving on around us and we are re-engaging as we can, but for the most part, our grief is now private.

We have learned to be kind to others and ourselves. Clumsy remarks are not ill meant; many do not know what to say, or how to talk about an event they could never imagine. For those who want to know more than we are willing or able to share, we have derived strategies to deflect unwanted questions: “We don’t know all the facts”; “It’s with the coroner”; “It’s not something I want to talk about right now”. With closer friends we are more open, but there are some things we have shared with very few. 

We allow ourselves sadness and tears regularly. It’s the depth to which we love and miss our artistic, lovely, clever, contrary, irritating, complex youngest daughter. We have allowed anger, frustration, regret and guilt to surface, dealing with each by reflecting back to ourselves what was true and real, not what might have been ‘if only’. 

Dealing with our grief has not been straightforward nor, indeed, straight or forward. We have heard it described as a thief, a stalker, a blanket, a whirlwind, a waterfall, a whirlpool – but for me, grief is a repeat mugger, someone who regularly runs up behind you and hits you over the back of the head when least expected. Now, even the hint of a memory can cause my face to crease in pain and tears to flow, in a meeting, cooking dinner or in the bathroom. 

For Janine, grief is being caught in a washing machine; never knowing which part of the cycle you are in; an agitated wash, quiet soak or rapid spin.  

Changing times

The pain is real, present and visceral and only gets less as life and time moves inexorably forward, and these grow around the painful memories.

Proust said: “Time, which changes things, but does not change our memory of them.” It is a stark reminder that time marches on, ignoring Becky’s death; a reality that seems unfair when you really want it to stop or reverse. Our lives inevitably change; yet the memory of Becky’s life is ossified at the time of her death. 

What happened has not diminished our belief. We can still say that Jesus is Lord.

As a family, we have started to clear Becky’s things. We have seven piles: definitely keep, don’t know, offer to family, sell, charity shop, recycle and bin. All have to agree if something is to go. If two people want the same thing, we buy a duplicate. We take lots of photographs, take time over decisions and define a safe space for anyone who wants to be alone. It’s a task that may take years.

We have recently started to put our heads above the parapet of our pain to share with church groups. These meetings have helped us acknowledge the reality of Becky’s death and we hope our story will help others, reducing the risk of suicide in the vulnerable, providing listeners with the tools to assist a friend and giving each group permission to talk openly about a taboo subject. 

Compassion, not judgement 

Suicide has become endemic in the UK. One person takes their life in England every 90 minutes. Three-quarters are male and the age group most at risk is those aged 50-54 years. Suicide is the main cause of death in those under the age of 35. It is not influenced by area or affluence and more than one-third of young people who die by suicide have had no mental health contact prior to their death. There are recognised triggers which include: significant personal loss such as bereavement, loss of friends, a home move, neurodiversity and bullying. Becky certainly ticked a number of these boxes.

Factors that lead to suicide are complex and medicine is only just beginning to understand them: psychological, emotional, physical, social, family, educational, genetic and more. These need compassion, not judgement. Yet, despite suicide carrying less of a stigma than it used to, we have still had a few inappropriate remarks about Becky lacking resilience or being abnormal. 

The Church’s track record in this area hasn’t helped. The Catholic Church only lifted the prohibition on funerals for suicide victims in the 1980s and declared suicide was not a mortal sin in 1992. The Anglican Church only lifted its ban in 2017, also declaring suicide was no longer a sin. However, there are still church groups who will not countenance services or burial for someone who has died by suicide. In these churches, the act is viewed as self-murder, usurping God’s right over life and death, and the sin from which you cannot repent. 

In my opinion, this ranks alongside the theological idea that there is no such thing as mental health, just lack of faith. Such ideas are dangerous, medically ignorant nonsense. To live by grace is to accept that through salvation Jesus can forgive all our sins; past, present, and future (Mark 3:28; Colossians 2:13-15). And please don’t get me started on the idea that calamity is God’s judgement on the individual for lack of faith. I am no Job, but his experience seems to contradict this view of suffering.

Despite suicide carrying less of a stigma than it used to, we have still had a few inappropriate remarks about Becky lacking resilience or being abnormal

Looking back, we could not have faced all this without professional help. Thankfully we were able to access free support through Rethink Mental Illness and the bereavement charities, Cruse, Suicide&Co and Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide. Regular face-to -face and online meetings have helped us talk and come to terms with what has happened. They have helped us understand the mental health reviews following Becky’s death, and prepared us for the coroner’s inquest that has yet to take place. They have introduced us to others with the same pain, and through group and personal conversations have shown us that we are not alone, even if we are all now enrolled in a club none of us ever wanted to join.

We have found that talking openly and often really does help. But above all, those counsellors have shown us kindness. The kindness of professionals with understanding and empathy has given us the support needed to carry on.

Blessed 

There is hope for our pain, though we could not see it in the October Becky died, at our “beginning of always”. Jesus said: “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4, KJV). We did not think we were ‘blessed’ when Becky died but, since then, we have been comforted – by old friends who have walked with us from the start, new friends who have come alongside us and by the Comforter himself, and these relationships have been a blessing.

Of course, faith has been integral to all of this. Janine and I have both believed for more than 50 years. Becky made a commitment in her teens. For us the resurrection is the hope of eternal life through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. What has happened has not diminished our belief. We can still say that Jesus is Lord. 

We have found that talking openly and often really does help

Over the years, we have sung Matt and Beth Redman’s ‘Blessed be your name’ many times. The first time we heard it after Becky died, we were in floods of tears as we sang the bridge, based on Job 1:21: “You give and take away / My heart will choose to say / Lord, blessed be your name.” As we realised what we were singing, Janine and I looked at each other and pressed through the song, affirming that God is still God, and is not diminished by our loss. These words may be difficult for us to sing, but they are words we still believe with all our hearts. 

Peter was a surgeon and now works part-time as a hospital medical director and expert witness. He is a member of All Saints Weston and is a member of the Anglican National Safeguarding Board. He has recently been accepted for Anglican ordination

If you’ve been affected by the issues raised in this article and would like to talk to a Christian who can offer emotional and spiritual support, call Premier Lifeline: the National Christian Helpline on 0300 111 0101. Lines are open 9am-5pm Monday to Friday