The voice of a teenager who was bullied to death has been immortalized in a song created with the help of her grieving father and artificial intelligence.
Lila Bradshaw was just 14 when she was found dead in her Idaho bedroom after a cyberbullying campaign orchestrated by the girl she thought was her best friend.
Now her musician father Tristan has taken the lyrics, poems and stories his daughter wrote to document her experiences and used AI to create the song she never had the chance to write.
“This is her voice. I dare you to listen to it,” she wrote on Facebook.
‘Listen to what our kids are going through and what they’re not talking about because they’re trying to make us proud or be tough or be like our generation.’
Lila Bradshaw, an eighth-grader from Idaho, was just 14 when she took her own life in May of this year after a campaign of cyberbullying by her “friends” at school in Ammon.
Her grieving father, Tristan, took the lyrics, poems and stories she wrote to document her experiences and used artificial intelligence to create the song she never had the chance to write.
The freckled eighth-grader was a straight-A student who loved art, animals and dyeing her hair.
But the harassment began after her family moved to Ammon in 2020 and she enrolled at Black Canyon Middle School.
“She stayed quiet and did her best to move on,” her father wrote. “She did everything she could, but she couldn’t stop it from destroying her reality.”
The family was left in shock after her mother found her lifeless body in her Bonneville County home on May 21.
His father began to look through his notebooks in an attempt to understand what had happened and discovered the words he was looking for.
“I took the liberty of going through his diaries and writing down all his lyrics,” he said.
“I tried my best to hear his voice. I had a prayer in my heart and asked him to be with me.”
Tristan’s brother had been using artificial intelligence to create songs and the grieving father realized he could use it to bring his daughter’s voice back to life.
One of the songs, ‘Escapism’, speaks movingly of her struggles but is defiantly set to the upbeat pop music she loved.
Her father said the harassment began after the family moved to the city in 2020.
The outstanding student excelled at guitar, drums, piano and singing in her short life.
Tristan, 38, has been undergoing counselling and a strong regimen of antidepressants as he copes with his grief in a house filled with reminders of his loss.
“In my dreams I can be who I want to be and make my life exactly the way I want it to be,” she sings.
‘For now I’m happy with who I am, I dye my hair so I can imagine that I’m someone strong and fierce but not for you, this character is just a fantasy but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming my dream.’
“That’s Lila,” her father told her. Eastern Idaho News.
“She would have been very pop. She would have been one of those people who danced and said, ‘Hey, we’re going through a tough time. This sucks. Let’s move on.'”
Tristan has brought together his daughter’s songs he wrote himself in an attempt to cope with his grief, including one called ‘Lost Daughter’ which he received on the night of her funeral.
“I still check my text messages to see his name on my phone,” she wrote.
“How can I be happy when I did my best, but it wasn’t enough for you to want to stay?
“You left me hanging and now my soul fled underground.”
But he needed help from AI too, because he kept crashing when he tried to record it.
“I wrote it on guitar and I couldn’t sing it without crying, that’s why,” she said.
Tristan, 38, has been undergoing counselling and a strong regimen of antidepressants as he copes with his grief in a house filled with reminders of his loss.
Photographs of Lila still adorn the walls, her ashes are on the nightstand, and Tristan wears a lock of her hair in a jar around his neck.
“His face is the first thing I see every day,” he said.
“Almost everyone who knew her called her ‘light.'”
She has released the songs on Spotify, Amazon and YouTube under the title Lila’s Ocean for those who want to listen to them.
And he wonders what his daughter would have thought of his efforts.
“I feel like she would be very happy,” he said.
“It would be great to hear your feedback.”
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
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