29/07/2026
Tomorrow is 12 years since my fiancé Naz
took his own life. He was the doctor other people went to.
Naz was a much-loved GP and co-founder of a successful chain of clinics. From the outside, he had everything a person could need. Medical colleagues. A profession that talks about mental health for a living. An organisation he’d helped build himself.
As far as I know, nobody in his working life ever had that conversation with him. Not the conversation after. The one before.
I’ve marked this date for 12 years, and I’ve always posted on the day itself. This is the first time I’ve posted the day before.
Anyone who has been through a similar experience will know that as certain key dates approach, the feelings of heartache, anxiety, pain, worry, and sadness all come flooding back again.
Earlier today I read Caroline Roodhouse MCIPR’s post about losing Steve and haven’t stopped thinking about it. Two conversations she wishes had happened before his su***de. One with him. One in his workplace.
12 years of telling Naz’s story to charities, schools and police forces has taught me we’re becoming more fluent in the after. The tribute post. A wellbeing line in the annual report. The all-staff email that starts “it is with great sadness”.
Hardly anyone rehearses the before.
And it’s the only part of this story that can still change.
Tomorrow, 30th July, is also Out and Proud Parents Day, which we run on the anniversary of losing Naz. All day we’ll be sharing a stream of anonymous thoughts, feelings and messages from parents who accepted their LGBTQ+ children. Some of them took years to get there.
Every one of them is a conversation that happened in time.
Follow to read them.
