By Abby Hook and Gerry Warren

Michelle Dore religiously applies her bright red lipstick every morning before facing the world.

“You’re not you without it,” her much-loved son Max would say.

So since his tragic death almost three years ago at the age of just 17, she makes sure to present herself how he would remember her.

“I made sure that when Max died, I’d wear it every day without fail, come rain, shine, putting the bins out, whatever,” she says.

Michelle is still coming to terms with the loss of her only child after he took his own life on the railway line near his home in Sandwich in January 2022.

“I had this perfect life with Max and then it went,” she says.

She is still perplexed as to why her son, who seemingly had everything to live for, would choose to end it all.

“He was that happy, smiley, and funny young man who had just passed his driving test, had an offer to university, countless friends, and found the very best of them in his mum,” she says.

“But it's happened, I can't change that, I can't undo it. It was like someone I was allowed to know for a while.”

Max’s grandmother, Pauline, adds: “It was like he came into this world for a reason and then the time was up and he had to go.”

Michelle, who works for the NHS, has given a heart-rending account of what it is like to lose a child to suicide for a Kent Tonight Special, which airs on KMTV next Wednesday.

She tells reporter Abby Hook about coping with “life after Max” and how she now spreads awareness of the risk of suicide in young people.

“People don’t know how to navigate around the subject of suicide. I never did - but I do now,” she says.

The full film will air on KMTV next Wednesday at 5.30pm

“What I can do is hopefully educate people to be more open-minded, to listen, to talk to people, because did I ever think I'd be in this situation? Not in a million years.

“My message to one and all is that if Maxi did it, it could happen to anyone.

“This was a sudden decision. What could I do? I don't think anything would have changed Max in that moment, but I would say in that moment, just pick up the phone.”

After Max’s death, an inquest was told a note was found at his home which simply read: "I think I'm just not meant to live. I can never see myself living much longer."

Michelle has been supported through her grief by some of Max’s friends from Sir Roger Manwood’s Grammar School in Sandwich.

“They were 18 when Max died but showed all the adults up because their behaviour was so incredibly grown up,” she says.

“A lot of his friends remain in contact and they have been the biggest support.”

One friend, Molly Cullen, considers how Max must have been feeling about his future at the time of his death.

“When we all get married, when we all have kids, it's going to be ‘this is something we all know Max thought he wouldn't have been able to do’,” she says.

Another, Grace Wilson, recalls how Max liked being the centre of attention at school.

“But it was never showing off, just him being funny and him being Max,” she adds.

Tilly Wilson says Max’s friends have experienced two “grief processes”.

“We had the grief period in school and then we also had that after leaving because there was an element of him still after he passed,” she remembers.

Max’s former head teacher, Lee Hunter, also contributes to the film.

“The thing with Max was that it was such a shock and came totally out of the blue,” he says.

“As soon as somebody that we are worried about goes absent, we will send an email, which goes to every single member of the pastoral team. Then we will immediately phone home or go looking for them if it's during the school day.

“That wouldn't have helped with Max because he wasn't on our radar at all, but it is something that we're very aware of with students when we know they are potentially vulnerable.”

Michelle keeps Max’s bedroom as it was and regularly sits on his bed.

“I can honestly say it brings me happiness coming in here. It's weird that I'm sitting on the bed that Maxi would be sitting on, phoning his friends, or with our cat, who he loved,” she says.

“I love Maxi more than I ever have, which is possibly not possible.”

Last September, Michelle joined two other bereaved mums for a 265-mile charity walk in aid of the charity PAPYRUS, which promotes awareness and aims to prevent suicides among young people, finishing at Sir Roger Manwood’s to a hero’s welcome from supporters.

Asked how she feels when she now sees video clips of Max, she says: “It’s really lovely but really weird - painfully beautiful.”

A tree has now been planted and a bench sited in the school’s grounds in memory of the popular pupil.

“To know that everyone is going to remember him from just looking at the incredible tree the school planted is a really lovely feeling,” says Michelle. “Strange for me, but lovely.”