The Men We Loved And Lost

Six Australian men commit suicide each day, making it the leading cause of death for males aged 15 to 44. But beyond the tragic statistics, what happens to those who are left behind? Karina Machado spoke to three women taking courageous steps towards hope after losing a brother, husband and father

- Karina Machado

The moment replays in Kate Hallett’s mind, a handful of seconds that swell with the deepest love and grief, and a pang of the unknowable. Last May her brother Thomas, 26, spent Mother’s Day with his parents and four siblings at their family home in Vermont, USA. It would be the last time the family saw their dark-eyed “beautiful boy”, as they always thought of him before he took his own life.

“I remember saying goodbye to him and feeling sad. I watched him – I’ll never forget – walk across the street, and I screamed out to him, not because I was scared, but to tell him again that I loved him,” recalls Kate through tears. “He turned around and there was something about the way he paused and looked back at me and said it back … I never saw him again. It feels like it was in slow motion. It’s really hard for me to think about moments like that, because you wonder, ‘Did he want to stay and not tell you?’”

For Kate, 30, a New York-based digital strategist who, like Thomas, was born in Sydney, life without her beloved brother has proven perilous terrain to navigate. “You meet a stranger and one of the first things people always ask you is, ‘Do you have siblings?’ [It] should be a very straightforward answer, but it never is for me, so it’s hard,” says Kate.