“I should have taken better care of Mummy, then she would still be alive.”

Rebekah was 7 when she found her Mum hanging from the roof of her living room. The drug use, violence and criminal activity had taken their toll and her Mum could see no other way out. Rebekah now lives with her grandmother who is still trying to come to terms with her daughter’s death. She attends Mirabel’s therapeutic girls group where she takes comfort in the fact that she is not alone. Since the group began six months ago, 5 of the children have had their second parent die from drugs. Rebekah takes it on herself to comfort the children in the group with gentle words and a reassuring hug. Rebekah vividly recalls the night her Mum died and the difficult times leading up to her death. She says that she feels safe now that she lives with her grandmother but she misses her Mum immensely. She blames herself for her mother’s death and thinks that she should have taken better care of her. Mirabel is working with Rebekah to help her make sense of her world, catch up on the schooling she has missed and help build some happy memories of her childhood.