If you were lucky enough to know Riley then you knew that you had someone special in your life. Riley is a sensitive, genuine, creative, kind and funny boy. He has the most beautiful eyes, a smile hard to ignore and could make you belly laugh at the drop of a hat. He has a real sense of adventure and loves mountain biking, cliff jumping, surfing but Riley's true passion is music and plays guitar in a band. He is always fun to be around - I know it may seem strange that I am referring to Riley in present tense but I can't write about him in past tense as I'm not quite accepting that he's not here. This is why his bedroom is left untouched, why I kiss his pillow every morning so I can remember his smell, why his mug is still sits in the cupboard and why we message him with things he has missed out on.

In August 2022, our world was turned upside down in an instant, when Riley took his own life. This came as a bolt from the blue to us, his family and his friends. What we can only assume is that Riley was suffering in silence and what makes it harder to understand is that Riley was close to his family and friends, laughed and performed with his band, ‘The Haze’, but still couldn't talk to any of us.

Riley, a boy full of fun, full of life, full of energy, is not how we would imagine someone struggling with mental health to be. In fact, if you took us back in time to that summer, knowing what we know now, I still don't think we would have spotted it, nor would any of his friends. Mental health and suicide can be hard to recognise, especially in young boys and men. We wish every day that Riley had spoken to someone, as the pain of not being able to kiss him, hug him, hear his incredible laugh, hear him writing and playing new songs on his guitar, catch him watching Harry Potter for the hundredth time is so painful that it still floors us every day.