A grandmother's wish for Molly's farewell

No grandparent should ever outlive their grandchildren, that’s the cycle of life.

Tragically we were to find out that this is not the case for us, as our beautiful granddaughter, Molly, succumbed to her greatest demons and took her own life on the 17th August 2022.

There are no words to the grief we are feeling. And the sadness that Molly couldn’t see what everyone else could see in her. You only have to look at her Facebook feed for the out pouring of love; how her presence would brighten up the room or how she’d make her friends laugh in the face of adversity. As a family we are heartbroken and there are no words for the sadness we feel, that at just 18 years old she could see no other way out.

Molly’s battle with mental health issues had dominated her life over the past four years or so. As a child, Molly was bright, confident, often headstrong, but full of love for life. She was doing so well at High School, an A grade student, popular with her peers and much loved by her family. How things were to change. There seemed no rhyme or reason to her mental health struggles, it crept up on us and before we knew it Molly was living in a psychiatric hospital for her own safety.

All through her battles, and believe me they were often scary to witness, her biggest supporters were her mum, our daughter-in-law Kelly, and dad, our son Tim. They stood strong together giving Molly complete and unconditional love where others would have given up or walked away. As private people, we never heard them complain, they just carried on supporting Molly in every way they could. All this, while working full time and raising Molly’s younger siblings, our other two grandchildren, Alfie and Amelia.

In 2014, Molly’s grandfather and I emigrated to Australia so in 2019 Molly came over to Australia on a family visit. She’d had to work so hard in the hospital not to self-harm so she was allowed to come over. We had the best few weeks showing her around the Brisbane area and meeting her extended family. The last conversation I had with Molly was about how well she was doing and a how excited she was for return trip to Australia. So, I never saw it coming.

It is with the greatest of sadness, that the money Tim and Kelly had saved for this trip will now be spend on their daughter’s funeral. What should have been the most exciting of journeys has now turned into the saddest of journeys for Molly and her family.

As private people, they would never ask for help or support but I truly believe there are kind people in the world that would be willing to offer them some small financial support for Molly’s funeral. That way, maybe Molly’s siblings will get their trip out to Australia after all.

For family or friends, rather than sending cards or flowers, donate what you would have spent on the gift of giving Molly the best farewell.

There’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child, I’m hoping it takes community to farewell one as well.