Why did my sisters commit suicide?
Izzy, Jenny and Anna Borau
Thursday 9th August 2007
The atmosphere was so highly charged I wanted to leap from my seat and run as fast as I could. Instead I stayed rooted to the pew and listened to the soft crying that echoed round the church.
Three weeks earlier, I'd been happy and doing well as an IT consultant. I had three great sisters, Anna, 21, Jenny, 18, Isabel, known as Izzy, 17, and a brother, Hannes, 8. We were all so close. Izzy lived in a flat round the corner from our mum, Kate, 54, in Sutton, Surrey, and had just got a job at a catering company. Anna lived in Brighton, where she worked as a model and I lived in a flat in South London. Only Jenny and Hannes still lived at home.
The nightmare had begun two weeks before when we couldn't get hold of her on the phone. Three days later, Jenny had phoned.
'Izzy's dead,' she'd sobbed.
'What?' I'd gasped in disbelief.
It turned out Mum and Jenny had forced Izzy's front door open and found her hanging on the back of the door. She'd killed herself with her scarf.
I'd been out clubbing with Izzy just a week earlier. She'd seemed so happy as she jumped around the dancefloor. So I'd searched our past for clues. Our childhood had been far from ideal. Dad, Peter, 51, and Mum had an unhappy marriage and when I was 15 and Izzy 10, Mum left him. Izzy went off the rails, skipping school and staying out late. When she was 15, she was sent to a young offenders institute for two months for shoplifting.
Then, in October 2005, on Izzy's 16th birthday, Dad had committed suicide by jumping off Hammersmith Bridge. Izzy had been devastated but a year on, she was getting over it. So why on earth would she kill herself?
'It's my fault,' Anna sobbed, as we clung to each other after the service. 'If I hadn't gone to bed that night, Izzy wouldn't have been on her own.'
On the night before Izzy killed herself, she and Anna had stayed up at Mum's drinking and putting the world to rights. At 2.30am, Anna had gone to bed, thinking Izzy would crash on the settee. But, instead, she'd gone back to her flat and hanged herself.
'Nobody could have seen it coming,' I comforted Anna. 'It was a mistake, a moment of madness.'
Izzy hadn't left a suicide note, so I was convinced it wasn't planned.
The weeks after the funeral were a blur. Anna seemed the strongest of us all, visiting Izzy's grave at Sutton Cemetery every day, always there if we needed to talk. Then, on 11 January 2007, two months after Izzy's death, I was coming out of the gym when I saw I had a missed call on my mobile from Mum.
When I phoned back, a policeman answered.
'I've got some bad news,' he said, gently. 'Your sister's killed herself.'
'Wh-which one?' I stammered.
'Anna,' he replied.
How could this be happening again?
I got a taxi to Mum's and we sat listening as a policeman explained how Anna had gone to stay with a friend in Crawley, West Sussex.
'Anna's friend popped out and when she came back, she found Anna's body in her flat,' he said.
She'd hanged herself, just like Izzy.
A million thoughts raced through my head. Concern, shock, grief, but most of all, anger. Anna had seen what Izzy's death had done to us all. How could she put us through this again?
The inquest for Izzy and Anna, recorded verdicts of open deaths. I'm convinced that Anna was simply too heartbroken over Izzy to cope. I'm devastated over their deaths but I'd never dream of taking my own life. I have lots of life left to live and if my own sisters' deaths have taught me anything, it's that I can't waste a moment.
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