SIOBHAN Tuppen woke late after a troubled night on Monday, March 27.
The Loreto College student, who was just two weeks shy of her 16th birthday, had been up until the early hours with her stepmother, Louise Tuppen, talking about the problems in her world.
Siobhan had been down, as she often could be, but Louise felt she seemed to be doing better.
She nibbled on a piece of Nutella toast, light-heartedly sooked about the needle she was supposed to be getting at school the next day and said she was going to take a shower.
Louise said goodbye and left their Miners Rest home to have the car, in which Siobhan was planning to learn to drive, serviced in Ballarat.
She returned home a few hours later to discover Siobhan had taken her own life.
The immediate horror was overwhelming.
Louise ran for help, but not even the heroic efforts of neighbour Aaron Smith, who attempted to resuscitate Siobhan for nearly 20 minutes, could bring the 15-year-old back.
Louise has relived the moment over and over during the past 12 days.
She explains that today she is sharing it for a reason.
Louise contacted The Courier with the view of raising the awareness of youth suicide.
"We want to turn this around to achieve something positive from Siobhan's life," she explained.
"If we can get one teenager to pick up the phone and ask for help and prevent this happening to another family then it will have made a difference.
"It may also help people to be aware of the signs."
Louise said although her family had known Siobhan was troubled, the depths of her despair had escaped everyone, including a psychologist who the teenager had been regularly seeing.
"She always had the most beautiful smile and laugh, but I suppose no-one really knew what was going on," Louise said.
"It was hard to explain. She had no zest for life. It wasn't clinical depression or anything, but she was just moping about. She had been like this for a long time. Sometimes I just worried that she wouldn't be happy."
The family attempted to get Siobhan involved in sport to lift her spirits.
She had, at various times, played netball, badminton, hockey and tennis. Siobhan was into horse riding for a while, also motorbikes and, more recently, had shown a genuine passion for photography at school.
"But her enthusiasm for everything just fizzled out," Louise said.
Siobhan's birth mother had committed suicide when Siobhan was just six months-old.
Siobhan's father, former jockey Chris Tuppen, later married Louise, who had three children of her own and the couple had one child together, Darcy.
Chris and Louise later separated and Siobhan continued living at Miners Rest with her younger brother and her stepmother.
Louise said the distraught family had rallied around each other since the tragedy.
Support had come from her children Jai, Noki and Sanjay DeSilva and Darcy Tuppen and extended family who had travelled from interstate and as far away as the Solomon Islands.
Louise said friends had been "towers of strength" and thanked the entire school community for its support, including new Loreto College principal Judith Potter and St Patrick's College principal, Dr Peter Casey.
She also thanked Father Justin Driscoll for his funeral service, FW Barnes Funeral Service, work colleagues and all those who had offered "friendship, love, support and prayers".
Louise made special mention of friends Sam Morris and Katrina and Tamara Proells, who handled all the funeral and church arrangements, among countless other tasks.
"I also want to thank my daughter Noki and her truly wonderful friends who created a slideshow of smiles and memories of Siobhan's life," she said.
"Through the tears there have been smiles. That's important."