A heartbroken widow has shared her haunting regret after missing her husband’s final phone call minutes before he took his own life.
Alan Marshall took his own life in March 2023, aged 37, just moments after calling his wife, Lisa.
Lisa missed the call as she was getting her children, Henry, eight, Matthew, seven, and Sofia, three, ready for bed.
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The 33-year-old tried to call her husband back, but he’d already taken his own life.
Lisa admits she’ll forever live with the question of whether she could have changed the outcome if she’d answered the phone.
“When I realised I missed his last call, I was kicking myself. Lisa, from Glasgow, told Need To Know.
“If I had answered, would I have been able to sense something in his voice?
“Could I have stopped him? Could I have got help? Could I have changed the outcome?
“There are so many unknowns because I don’t know what he wanted to say.
“He could have been calling to say goodbye, or he could have been calling to say he was going to be home late and not to put dinner on for him.
“I’ll never know.”
The last time Lisa saw Alan was when he left for work as a dentist.
She described it as a “completely normal” day and said he’d never shared with anyone that he was struggling with his mental health.
Lisa said: “I wasn’t aware of any issues or that he was suffering with his mental health, and he never asked for help.
“It was a normal day.
“He went to work as normal, and we were texting normally the whole day.
“He tried to phone me at 6 pm, but I was getting the kids ready for dinner, and my son was playing games on the phone.
“The battery drained, I charged it and noticed he tried to call, so I rang back, but he was already dead.
“When the police came, I thought it was him coming home from work.
“Then I thought it was about my dad because my mum was mine.
“It didn’t cross my mind that it would be for Alan.
“I dropped to the floor, I couldn’t speak, I was heartbroken, the wind was taken out of me, and I nearly threw up.
“I was in shock.
“I thought they’d got the wrong person, and it was a mistake or it was an accident, but the police had his ID.”
Lisa says she was desperate to find out why Alan was feeling suicidal, but has been forced to accept that she’ll never know.
She said, “Dentists have a really high suicide rate because it’s a very stressful job.
“I was trying to find out if something happened at work, but there was nothing.
“I’m just left wondering, but there’ll never be a reason that’s good enough.”
Lisa, also a dentist, met Alan in a nightclub in Glasgow in 2011, and they went on their first date six months later.
He proposed to her on the same day of her graduation in 2014.
Lisa said: “Me and Alan were best friends.
“We were in sync and finished each other’s sentences.
“He made me laugh all the time.
“Alan was always joking. He was a big kid, full of life, and he lit up a room.
“He was a fun parent, always playing with the kids.”
Lisa documents her grieving process on her TikTok account, The Widow Diaries, to raise awareness of the charities that have helped her since losing Alan and to encourage anyone suffering with their mental health to ask for help.
She added, “There were 1,000 people at Alan’s funeral, but he didn’t speak to any of them about how he was feeling.
“People would rather help than attend your funeral.
“Our lives are hard without him, but he’s missing out on so much now.
“Sofia has never had a birthday with her dad.
“At the funeral, I put a card in his coffin saying I was sorry that I couldn’t help him and that I forgave him.
“I told him I loved him and was proud of him, and I couldn’t remember the last time I told him that because we were busy with the kids.
“If you’re struggling, you have to talk to someone. Just tell one person how you’re feeling.
“There’s a ripple effect, people are traumatised, and I have PTSD.
“I still haven’t gone back to work.
“I couldn’t speak about Alan’s death for two years because it was so painful.
“Counselling and peer support have helped hugely, as well as exercise and self-care like Reiki.
“I also wrote everything down because I couldn’t say how I felt out loud.”
Lisa is sharing some of the charities that have supported her since Alan’s death, including A Place Called Here, Winston’s Wish, Widowed and Young, SOBS, as well as some charities that she believes could have supported Alan if he’d reached out for help, including The Canmore Trust and Papyrus.
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