09/10/2026
***Trigger warning—the following discusses su***de.***
Yes, this is a long piece of writing, and to those who do read it through, thank you. But please, if you do nothing else, watch the Mike King video in the post above.
10 years ago today, a Sunday, I was sitting on the couch in my usual position, doing my planning for my class the next day. My husband at the time was mowing the front lawn, and the younger kids were both out, just a typical Sunday. Until the phone rang. It was our three older boys' mum asking to talk to their dad, not a common occurrence. I handed the phone over and went back inside. Then the next thing I hear is a sound coming out of my ex-husband that I've never wanted to hear again. That's when our world changed; that's when we were told the youngest of our three older boys, Creed, my 22-year-old son, in every way except biology, had taken his own life.
If I'm sharing his end of life with you, I think it's only right that I tell you a bit about his life and who he was.
Creed was 2.5 years old when I had the privilege of taking on the role of ‘other’ mother/parent to Creed and his 2 older brothers, at the ripe old age of 20 years.
He had the biggest teethiest smile and a big old bobble head, and he was go go go! Far more of a tutu haere than his brothers. No fear that one. One of his favorite games at 3 years old was to run to the far end of the Awakeri Hot Pools and jump in, assuming someone would be there to pick him up off the bottom of the pool. A game he would repeat every time he had the chance throughout the day.
There was little he didn’t excel in, both physically and mentally, except perhaps compliance and thinking through an action's potential consequences. This boy was winning 100m races by 20-30m at primary school.
Never being one for authority and with the added boredom of finding everything too easy for his sake, and the sake of his future Year 6 teacher, the decision was made to skip his last year at primary school and go straight into Year 7. Creed was lucky enough to end up with the amazing Mr. Mita, Eru, who also went on to teach our 2 youngest as well. Eru was great at seeing what motivated/drove his students and always made an effort to engage each one at their level. He was always able to see past Creeds' bu****it and bravado. It's safe to say Creed's 2 years spent at intermediate with Eru were his two best years at school. Creed always had so much respect for Eru and was always stoked to see him when he would call in.
High school was a whole other matter. Despite being a year younger than all the other Year 9s, he tested as one of the highest on the PAT tests.
Such a bright boy with an equally advanced propensity for stupidity. When he wasn't throwing some bully out of the classroom window, bottom floor, in the defense of someone else, or throwing his pie at the principal's head, mortal enemies they were. He was risking life and limb—well, limb at least—playing urban ninja.
By the end of year 10 he had been banned from JAB rugby and kicked out of school. He spent the next few years at alternative Ed and went from course to course, not sure if he completed any of them.
This was the status quo for the next 6/7 years. We were beginning to worry he was unemployable.
Something no one could ever deny was his fierce love for his family and friends. Having been the youngest of the three boys, Creed just loved becoming a big brother once Flynn and Madi were born. He was always proud of his siblings and cousins and happily let them know that. No matter where he was or what state he was in on Christmas Eve, he always showed up on Christmas Day and brought the fun and the love.
He knew how to charm you into doing or giving him something he wanted while leaving you feeling grateful for being a part of whatever mission he had going on because it was a badge of honor to be an active participant in one of our many ‘do you remember when Creed…’ stories.
My favorite, and I think many of my family's favorite, ‘tale of the adventures of Creed’, is the one about my sister's wedding.
Her wedding was quite a way out of town at a beautiful venue.
Creed rocks in, aged 21, all smiles, energy, and love. I'm not sure I even know how he got there, as he was staying in Hamilton at that time, and he had no car.
All he had were the clothes on his back; he may have had a wallet on him, but if he did, it was purely for decoration.
The boy probably had one of the best nights of the guests. He was never without a drink, a cigarette, my brother's new cap, or a crowd of people enjoying his energy. He even managed to con my brother into letting him stay in the room Tane had booked at the venue.
Having no plan for getting back to the bus station to get back to Hamilton or money to even buy water for the bus ride home just never fazed him. His aunty was getting married, and his family was going to be there, so no lack of ride, money, or a plan to get back for work was going to stop him. Just like at the hot pools, as a toddler, he always had the faith someone would pick him up and dust him off so he could go and do it all again another time.
And as was Creeds usual, in the morning seeing his sad hungover face, my mum and stepdad took pity on him and not only drove him into town to the bus stop, but also bought him breakfast as well.
It was around this time that Creed's Uncle Sean and Leah, offered him a job up in Auckland, which he took and seemed to be doing really well. He'd meet a lovely girl. He was in love. He'd made lots of new friends. He was learning a trade and we were relieved. We thought he'd finally be on a pathway to responsible adulthood, or at least proactive adulthood. He'd even bought himself a truck and had a Kiwi saver.
My sister's wedding was in the beginning of March 2016; we lost Creed on the 9th of October 2016.
One thing that I'm extremely grateful for was that Creed had written a detailed note explaining why he felt this was the right choice to make, of course, his logic was flawed, but he believed he was doing the right thing for him and everybody else. He also took the time to write a little note to each of his siblings, myself, and his parents. This doesn't change the fact that he is gone, but I can only imagine how hard it is for people who don't have any kind of answer, logical or not.
Was it something we were expecting or worried about with him? Not really. He just seemed to go with the flow, but in hindsight, I know he was talking a lot about being really tired and sore and feeling very old like an old man. At his tangi many of his friends shared that they had spent many a night with him in a car, talking him out of wanting to commit su***de. I appreciate his friends eternally for doing that with him; the only thing I wished they had done was let us know.
The support we were shown during the Tangi was humbling. By the time we got back from transporting Creed home from Auckland our friends and family had completely transformed our home into a marae. We got Creed home Monday early evening and his service was held on the Friday. During those four days hundreds of people came to pay their respects. I did not make a single hot drink or prepare any food that entire time. Like magic, thanks to our amazing friends every couple of hours the table would be covered with food and then just as miraculously it would be cleared again. Before I had even had the chance to think about being hungry a plate of food was given to me. Washing suddenly turned up washed and folded in our bedrooms. I don't know how we would have coped during those days without our amazing support crew.
Creed's service was amazing; it was like a rock concert, (watch my brother tribute below).
A perfect send-off for a person who always knew how to enter a room. With the help of his mates and the ‘Meat Sac’ crew, yes, you read that right, Creed was transported in style on the back of a souped-up ute, escorted by a convoy of rotaries. We did a victory lap passed the High School; as we knew he'd get a kick out of the distraction so many rotaries would have caused. Creed's arrival to the homestead was announced with a multi-car burnout, which was incredible. There had to be over a thousand people at his service, which just goes to show the impact he had on those who knew him, even if he didn't understand it, he was loved.
What I didn't realize was that the hardest was to come. While we had him at home, the people around us were incredible. But it's the weeks following that are hard. It's amazing how for years, having no fence in front of our property, living on the street that everyone uses to cut through town, while sitting in our lounge, we would watch those we knew go past and everybody would always instinctively look in. Now when driving past following the loss of our son; it was quite incredible how interesting the other side of the road became for people who drove past.
I understand it's hard to be around people grieving , you don't know what to say , it's uncomfortable , so people often stay away, and it's so isolating. It's not about coming and fixing everything. Because you can't, but just being there, being there, in the discomfort of the grief, but you know, you can go home. We're in it all day, and having someone turn up and have a coffee just makes such a difference.
A week or so after the service, one morning before school, I saw a car pull up the driveway and in rushed a teacher from the intermediate, where my ex worked, and whose son I taught at primary school. We didn't know her well she was relatively new to the school, but she came running in, talking really fast. And she just said, “I couldn't drive past without calling in to give you a hug and just tell you I love you and now I gotta go to school”, and off she rushed. That small effort, I can't even describe how good it felt, and how much impact it had on us in a period where we were feeling like the goblins everybody wanted to stay away from.
During this time our middle son, who had struggled with his mental well-being for years, had come back home to heal. I know that's not what it looked like to anyone else, but that's what he was doing. K over the years had made several attempts to commit su***de, and every pore of his body wanted to join his brother. But he saw what the loss of Creed was doing to the family, and he didn't want to hurt us like that. So he fought; the strength it took him to get up every day and keep breathing was phenomenal.
Unfortunately, to most, it didn't look like he was doing anything but staying in his room, at times raging and ranting and just being selfish at a time when we needed him to step up. Well-meaning family and friends who come around and say things like, "All he needs to do is get up-and-go for a walk," and I know they were worried about us. I know they didn't understand, but if you get nothing out of feeding this, except for the message that if you don't know what to say, just say nothing and make a cup of tea and be there, that'd be awesome. It broke my heart knowing that people just saw a depressed, miserable person who wasn't trying, young adult who, in their mind, was being selfish. When really, what he was was a hero to me, because I know what it took for him to get up every day for those months, and he only did it for us, because he definitely didn't want to do it for himself. Nobody wants to feel like that. Nobody makes a choice to feel that way. A friend said to her partner who didn't understand her clinical depresstion, “I'm not depressed because I'm lying in bed, I'm lying in bed because I'm depressed”. So instead of criticizing, or offering suggestions like “you just need to wake up with a better attitude, just be there. Spending time with a person in the throes of depression, fun, no generally not, is it uncomfortable seeing their grief, their pain, the anger, their rage, and not knowing what to say? But, again you can leave, the discomfort is short term, they're living with that every minute. Knowing you're there for them, even if they don't engage with you does make a difference.
Remember its called ‘mental illness’ not ‘mental choice’. We would never criticize a person with cancer for not being able to live the same way those without cancer can.
You would never tell a parent they should kick their adult child out because they have cancer and the burden of their care is draining the parents energy and taking time away from the other children. Yet I was told more than once we should just kick k out. I had already just lost one son, who didn’t let us know he was ill, there was no way, no matter how hard it was, I was going to kick out our equally ill child. I will always be grateful to K for giving us the chance to help him.
We don't have to understand what causes cancer to dedicate everything we have to help our loved one, mental illness is no different.
Please if you are struggling, tell someone, and keep telling people until someone hears you.
If someone you love tells you they are struggling please listen to them.
Thanks guys for taking the time to read this and please watch the Mike King clip, it's, in my opinion, the best simple description of what drives a person to su***de I have ever seen. Understanding the underlying cause can make such a positive difference to how we respond and support someone suffering with depression and suicidal ideation.
As well as Mike Kings clip a beautiful tribute my brother made for Creed is in the comments.
