Nikki - It will be 22 years this year that my brothers and I lost our mum to suicide. People often ask if I'm angry with her... I'm not. I never have been. She wasn't perfect but she was an incredibly caring, supportive, reliable and resourceful person. She was always there to help anyone who needed it, was always the strong shoulder to cry on and carried others burdens around with her. She had many of her own that she seldom shared. How could I ever be angry? She gave a huge amount of herself, her time, her understanding and forgiveness to others and left little for herself.I am sad. Sad that she never got to meet any of our children. Sad that she wasn't there on our wedding days. Sad that she's missed out on so much joy our family would have brought her. Sad that she wasn't able to talk to us and share how she was feeling. Sad that she felt we would all be better off without her. And I miss her, every day. I wonder if she would be proud of us. I wish I could share my highs and lows with her, ask her parenting advice, just spend time, making memories and 'chewing the fat'.Losing her wasn't our first experience with suicide. My brothers and I lost a friend the previous year and without knowing it at the time, she prepared me. She told me 'don't be mad. We are taught self preservation, to keep ourselves out of harms way. How sad must he have felt?' She used the word "brave' which sounds like an odd word to use to some but those words came back to me after she passed and were strangely comforting.I am running this marathon with my cousin (Kat) who sadly lost her husband and soulmate in 2020, also to suicide, in memory of them both. This time last year we started running together and could barely do 3k, now we've signed up to do 42! My heart breaks every time I hear of another life lost to suicide and if we can help save just one persons life, well then it's a cause worth running for.

Kat - My cousin (Nikki) and I have spent the last year going from simply ‘getting out’ to training for a marathon. It’s going to be quite the feat. We lost her mum (my aunt) to suicide in a time when I was unable to even comprehend what suffering she and my other cousins could possibly be going through. When my husband, Simon, died to suicide in May 2020 she supported me in ways I had not even come to recognise until even very recently. One of those ways was keeping me going out. This is what Simon used to help me with, by supporting every run big or small cheering me in from behind his cup of coffee ☺️ Thanks to various lockdowns and logistics we will still have not managed to achieve a wake/commemorative celebration of his life with all his friends, family, and loved ones near by. The recent passing of his mum means this training will be during a time of further loss, but she was proud of what we were achieving every challenge that came our way. On 9th May it will have been two years that he look his life, I am tackling this marathon a month prior to this anniversary in his honour. Rituals after losing someone, especially someone so deeply connected to us, are an important part of grieving in a healthy way. It is not just the lack of social interactions that has prolonged and delayed our early grief reactions, but the lack of opportunity to hold such important rituals as humans. I was connected with my husband, and it still couldn’t be prevented. Lockdown saw an increase in suicide, one of which was my soulmate, Simon. If I can help prevent this happening to anyone else, then maybe this is part of the way there.