Kate Cleal lives in Roundhay. She lost her daughter Lily, 18, in 2013.
I was thrilled when I was chosen to be a baton bearer. My daughter, and only child, Lily, died in 2013 and everything I’ve done since then has been to remember her and to spread the messages about breaking stigma.
She was young, 18, when she died. That’s the sad case really – you are so young, you can’t get any perspective. She was all for enjoying life; but she was just thwarted in love and had had her heart broken. You choose this horrible, permanent solution and you think there’s no other way out.
The coroner described her as a ‘free spirit’ and she was. Lily was very sociable, a real party girl. She had a big circle of friends, who we’re still in touch with now. She loved her music and getting made up to go out. She was just full of life and loved life. That’s why it’s so incredible that she did what she did. It’s been very hard to live with, so I try to turn it into a positive, I do what I can to spread the message.
When she first died, for the first three or four years I did a lot of work with Papyrus (a charity for the prevention of young suicide), speaking alongside them at events and helping with their work in schools. Papyrus’s work is really important. Young suicide is the biggest killer. They run Hopeline – a 24/7 phone helpline for young people experiencing suicidal thoughts and for everyone impacted by that. I’ve done a lot of work to help raise awareness of that.
It’s a reality we have to face into. The more we talk, the more stigma we’re breaking about it, and talking helps the overwhelmed feelings lessen.
Her death has been absolutely devastating. I lost the light of my life. I find it easier to say she died in 2013 than she died 12 years ago because it still feels like yesterday. Every single day I think of Lily and I embrace that. I love to feel her closeness.
Suicide has just been whispered about for too long. People have to know. Because when you know, then you talk more and are more aware and can look out for each other more.
That’s the whole point with the Baton of Hope tour. That people will maybe see the baton and the people taking part and it just might get people to think twice. It’s not always something that happens to someone else. It’s amongst us.
It doesn’t feel like any other death because the impact is so far and wide and the things that people who remain might put themselves through – the guilt, the questioning, re-examining the conversations and the recalibrating of the memories. That might not happen with other deaths.
She did what she did because she thought there was no hope – but there is hope. It’s so important that I get that message out there.