Mum who lost four relatives to suicide helps other families through grief

KIM BIRD was just picking up her children from school when she took a phone call that would change everything.

During that call, she was told the devastating news that her younger brother had killed himself.

Apparently devastated by the breakup of his recent marriage, Simon Williams had taken his own life just days after his sister’s 40th birthday.

“He was living near New York and was devastated by the break-up of his recent marriage,” Kim said.

“My husband, Adrian, had taken me on a surprise weekend to New York for my 40th where we saw him and it was wonderful.

“But just days later, as I was picking the children up from school, my older brother called me. He told me that Simon had killed himself.

“It was a shock like no other I have ever experienced. I called his house straight away – almost to check if it was true, I just didn’t want to believe it.”

Kim, from Cardiff, fell apart after hearing the news. But Simon’s death aged 34 was not the first suicide in the family.

Kim’s 43-year-old cousin, Sue, had killed herself five years earlier. And in 1979, her aunt and uncle, Ida and Albert, died in a suicide pact.

After her brother died in 2004, Kim, 52, was so grief-stricken and angry that she ended up leaving work and seeking counselling.

But one day, she suddenly forgave her sibling for taking his own life, realising that he must have been in “so much pain” to do so.

“I realised that the only way he could release himself from his own spiralling depression was to take his own life,” she said .

“He must have been in so much pain. Nobody could have reached him. It was then that I was finally able to let my anger go.”

Once she’d regained control of her grief, Kim thought more about the process of funeral arranging – something she had always had an interest in.

She realised that, in her emotional state, she had got completely carried away and spent thousands more than she should have on Simon’s funeral.

This sparked an idea she had, not just for a business, but for a way of empowering bereaved people to help prevent themselves being so vulnerable.

Kim set up the comparison and review website, About the Funeral, “to tackle a lack of price and service quality transparency when it comes to arranging funerals”.

The site aims to stop people paying up to thousands of pounds more than they need to if they’ve been overtaken by emotion.

It also aims to help them “find a funeral director that’s right for them”.

Kim had always wanted to start a business of her own.

When Simon announced he was going to train as an embalmer, a spark was lit.

“He’d always had odd jobs but this was a bit left-field,” Kim said.

“But the more I thought about his new vocation, the more I thought arranging funerals would perfectly match my skillset.

“I became a bereavement support volunteer to ensure I could cope emotionally. I found it really rewarding.”

Kim was then offered a role as funeral arranger alongside volunteering with SCI, now Dignity, one of the UK’s largest funeral plan companies.

And it was then, 18 years ago, that the first seeds of the idea were sown for what would eventually become her funeral comparison business.

“I’d sit with families for about an hour and a half going through the arrangements,” said Kim, who is mum to Jasper, 22, and Sophie, 21.

“It’s such an unfamiliar, confusing experience, and can be expensive. And so often they’d be too embarrassed to say they couldn’t afford more than a basic funeral.

“I could tell by the veiled comments