\u201cThe whole world changed colour when I lost Beth,\u201d Mr Palmer says. \u201cPeople call it devastation: it\u2019s too small a word. I was completely shattered. It was like being smashed to the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a firefighter [at Manchester Airport]. I\u2019d spent years and years dealing with life-and-death situations. I taught trauma to first responders, and was very often on the other end of a defib. But losing my little girl just destroyed me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feeling suicidal himself, he couldn\u2019t talk to his family and couldn\u2019t work, he says. The only thing that got him out of bed in the early days was his dog, Monty, whom he walked in the middle of the night so that he didn\u2019t have to meet people. \u201cI was in an awful place. But little things started happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
He felt compelled to write a journal \u2014 something that he had never done before \u2014 and discovered this to be an outlet for his anger and despair. He asked for help, and found good people in a counsellor, a local suicide-bereavement service, and the airport chaplain, George Lane.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a> (registration or subscription).<\/p>\n After his daughter\u2019s death, Mike Palmer became one of \u20183 dads walking\u2019 to raise awareness of young suicide. He talks to Catherine Larnerhttps:\/\/t.co\/QVcXmHHCMd<\/a><\/p>\n — Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 28, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n