What can possibly prepare you for the total shock of being told – however gently – that your beloved only son had suddenly and unexpectedly 'passed away'. What! How? When? The thought rushed through my head 'Can I get there to see him before it is too late!'. Then the dawning impact that the strong, happy,
My daughter Rachel Haigh died in her sleep on the 4th December 2001 aged 14 years, from Viral Myocarditis. Eight years later, we are now mourning the loss of our son Jason Chew who died in his sleep on the 11th March 2009 aged 17 years, from Lymphocytic Myocarditis. I have read that it can be
Thomas Shackleton died on the 19th May 2004, aged 21. Thomas was a great musician who played the guitar and could make a tune on any instrument. This was one of his songs (click to listen) that we played at his funeral – and on his gravestone we have a guitar engraved into the marble with
My beautiful son Ryan was 18 years of age when he decided to go travelling to Canada. Me and my husband and his sister did not want him to go as he had recently packed up working for my husband as an apprentice alarm engineer. But Ryan just wanted to live his dream, which was travelling
It was eighteen months on Christmas Eve 2009 since my son Luke died and I’m still struggling to find words adequate to describe both Luke and the impact of his death. On June 24th 2008 I’d gone straight from work to Luke’s house; he had only just moved in and the house really wasn’t liveable-in and
Wednesday 22nd October 2008 7.40am – My youngest son Ollie shouts “right, I’m off now”. I am in my bedroom wrapped in a towel, I do not go into the hall to see him, but I shout back “have a happy day” and he leaves for his third day’s teaching practice at a local primary school.
How do I begin? How can any mother start to recount the most awful day of her life? It has taken me nearly three years to begin to come to terms with our sad loss. It began on March 27th 2007, which just happened to be my birthday. The day began with usual birthday wishes and
It was the help of CRY during the first two years of the millennium that our family first learned of SADS and the worldwide scale of families suffering the same kind of loss as ourselves. It is truly tremendous. CRY gave us the answers, information and support that we craved. Just like so many others, we
It was a Monday towards the end of September 2004, our W.I. evening. We had a speaker coming who used to live locally, but who had moved to Edinburgh and was coming all the way down to be with us. Consequently, we were making it a “special evening”, and I was busy preparing my share of
We had no idea that James would leave us at such an early age. He had gone out Christmas shopping to Newcastle with his brother Leon and planned to meet up with friends in a bar later in the afternoon. When James arrived he ordered a drink but told his brother he was feeling dizzy and