Five years ago today my brother hanged himself.
I’ve read the suicide note he left my then sister-in-law, just as I’ve read the hefty coroner’s report into his death, which is now blotchy and stained with my tears. Both of those show that his death wasn’t a cry for help gone wrong but planned in meticulous detail. Put simply, the reason he killed himself was because his wife wanted to leave him and he couldn’t conceive of a life without her.
I know that. I accept that. And I’ve made peace with the fact that no one but my brother is responsible for tying that rope around his neck. He could have chosen to live but instead he chose to die. I don’t agree with that choice but I do recognise it was his to make, no matter how painful that is for those of us he left behind.
R.I.P Matt: 08.01.1974 – 30.03.2009
My brother killed himself 