A lot of people who live in Marston Moretaine will know Maureen and Alan who have been heavily involved in the Community Church for many years. They used to help run the Tiny Tots group in the village, they also helped out at the holiday club that the church ran, they ran an after school club at Church End School on a Tuesday, they have also taken the elderly out and about to do shopping and Alan also still goes into the Lower School to do ‘Open the Book’ where he brings Bible stories to life. The kids think it’s great.

Unfortunately, over the last 3 and a half years Maureen and Alan have had their lives turned upside down. Back in 2015 Maureen’s son Colin was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He and his wife Sabina lived in Bromley in Kent at the time with their children Zara who was 8 and Zain who was 4. This diagnosis came shortly before Sabina was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and had a Mastectomy. Thankfully Colin had an operation to remove the tumour and things seemed to be going well. However, shortly after they had the devastating news that Sabina had Motor Neurone Disease (a progressive disease that involves degeneration of the motor neurons and wasting of the muscles) which they knew would shorten her life.

Colin became Sabina’s full time carer and Maureen and Alan supported by travelling down to Bromley most weekends to help out with caring for the children and providing support to Colin and Sabina.

Devastatingly in 2017 Colin’s brain tumour returned and sadly this time it was not curable. Colin and Sabina made plans to move up to Marston Moretaine so that they could be near to Maureen and Alan who would help take care of them and the children. Things swiftly progressed, however, and Sabina and Colin both ended up in a Hospice as Sabina needed full time care and Colin’s condition was deteriorating. Maureen and Alan took care of the children at home in Bromley during this time. In June 2018 Colin sadly passed away.

Sabina still wished to move up to Marston Moretaine, so in July 2018 Maureen and Alan helped Sabina to move up here with Zara and Zain. They had a house just around the corner and had 2 live-in carers taking care of Sabina in a room downstairs. Maureen and Alan would get up early every morning to go and get the children up and dressed and would stay every night until they were both in bed as the carers were only there to take care of Sabina. Maureen also spent most of her days when the children were at school, with Sabina making sure she was ok and arranging appointments/carers and all that goes along with looking after someone who is severely disabled, Sabina heavily relied on Maureen as she was a huge support to her. Maureen and Alan did this without any complaints and all the while trying to ensure that Zara and Zain could stay with their Mum as long as possible.

Sabina’s condition continued to deteriorate, she was now fully tube fed, unable to walk, talk or do anything for herself. The children were unable to talk to their Mum now and every day were seeing her deteriorate. Maureen managed to get an Eye Gaze for Sabina which gave her the ability to communicate through a computer, this gave her a small amount of independence back and she was able to communicate her needs and wishes. This also enabled her to talk to her children which was massively important to her and them.

However, sadly in February 2019 Sabina contracted a chest infection and was unable to fight it off and she passed away on 8th February only a couple of days before Zara’s 12th birthday.

Zara and Zain, now aged 12 and 7, have been incredibly brave having lost both of their parents within 8 months of each other, but they really have gone through a terribly tough time watching their Dad become ill so quickly and then their Mum gradually deteriorate. However, they have had an amazing support system through Maureen and Alan which has given them much comfort during this time.

Maureen and Alan are now moving into the house that Zara and Zain lived in with their Mum during her final months so that the children don’t have to go through any more upheaval. Whilst this means giving up their bungalow which they had bought to make their lives easier as Alan is now in his 80’s (I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing that) they are always putting the children first and in Alan’s words ‘It’s not about us, it’s about the kids’, even though they are also grieving.

We would like to do something special for this wonderful, selfless couple and these two children who have been through so much over the last couple of years. We are raising money to try to send them all on a special holiday. We would like it to be a real treat where they can all relax and have fun and really make it something that the children have to look forward to. We are aiming to raise as much as possible and will then let them decide where they would like to go with the money. Any additional money raised over the cost of a holiday would go towards the children’s future.

We are planning to organise a Family Magic Show on Friday May 24th and also a Family Fun Day later in the year. If you can support either of these events in any way then please let us know. In the mean time if you would like to make any donation to this fund then please do so through the Just Giving page www.justgiving.com/zaraandzain