14th October 2008

October 14th 2006 – two years ago we lost a precious member of our family. We are still grieving and always will be, such a lovely person so sadly missed by all.

Like a lot of others at that time we were so wrapped up in our own little world, oblivious to the things that happen to so many. Then it was our turn – a sudden phone call which changes our lives forever. Now we want to tell everyone our story and let everyone in on our grief and loss.

Sometimes we cannot understand how others are going on, when we find it so difficult to move on.

We thought it would be an ideal opportunity to help raise awareness this year, and when we had the chance to have a table in the St. Govan’s Shopping Centre in Pembroke Dock (two years to the date since Graham died), we jumped at the chance to let others know about CRY and all that it involves.

We were delighted with the amount of people who stopped to chat to us while we explained our story. A lot of hearts were touched and a few donations were given to CRY.

Giving out leaflets and telling so many people our story came quite naturally after a while and we were delighted that so many people stopped to read the posters up around the centre.

Sometimes you are given a leaflet whilst out shopping and you tend to pop it into the nearest bin without even glancing at what it was for. We were delighted that there were no CRY leaflets dumped in bins, and we were delighted when we saw how many people would walk away and glance through the leaflet before putting it in their pockets and bags. We were so delighted that people came back and told us their stories.

Hopefully the message has got through to others and they too will help spread the word. It is an awful thing to think that it takes an incident to bring reality to life.

Graham is one of many young people who went before his time. He left two wonderful young children behind who will now be monitored over the most important years of their lives. We hope that the awareness week has attracted enough interest that the government will insist on screening for all our young.

We thank everyone who helped us raise awareness on that day and thank CRY for all they do to help towards preventing others from finding out about it the way our family did.

Paula Otton