Stuart Wilson
Lynda's Smiles
Fundraising for The Smile Train
Story
On the 6th February we lost our amazing Wife and Mum. She passed away peacefully surrounded by her loved ones after a short illness. We all had time to say goodbye and talk about all the fantastic things we had shared together over the years. Importantly she was able to tell us all about what she wanted us to do for her, and others after she had gone. Her strength and character when she knew that she wasn’t going to be with us for much longer was inspiring and amazing and it showed through in many ways, most of these are personal to us, but one that we want to share with everyone was her wish for people not to spend loads of money on flowers for her, that she wouldn’t even get to see herself. Instead, those that wanted to show their love and affection for her, she wanted them to help others.
Those who know Lynda will know that as well as devoting her life to her family, she also devoted her time to her career, spanning decades she worked with young children in schools and nurseries, caring for them, educating them, helping them overcome challenges and making them smile and grow every day. She shared a story with us that was from the very start of her working life, she was a trainee in a nursery and looked after a young baby that had a cleft palate. The baby’s mother abandoned her when she was born, not wanting her due to her condition. She left the hospital alone and left the baby there. The baby’s father didn’t accept this and he brought the child home himself to him and his wife. The mother then left the baby and her father and walked out on them leaving them alone. The father committed himself to looking after his daughter and placed her in a local nursery where she was taken care of by Lynda whilst he went out to work.
Lynda described the child as having the most beautiful eyes and it was clear that even over 50 years later, the unfairness of this was still something that made her sad. She told us that she wanted people to donate to a charity that helped treat children with this condition, its a relatively inexpensive and straight forward operation to correct and can totally transform a life. She particularly wanted to support a charity that looked after children suffering with this in countries where tolerances of such conditions were low. For a child to have this condition is bad enough, but of them to suffer even more by being abandoned and neglected by their parents and society is unacceptable.
So as just one way we all want to say thank you to Lynda, wife and mother, we have chosen to support Smile Train, a fantastic charity that devote their time and resources to transforming the lives of children like the one Lynda looked after when she was just 16. We have set up This Just Giving page for this charity and anyone at all who knew Lynda and would like to make a donation of any amount can do so here. We called the page Lynda’s Smiles
We did the maths and over her career Lynda cared for and positively impacted the lives of thousands of children, its no surprise that even after she has gone, she wants to keep helping more and whilst we are all devastated to not have her in our lives anymore, she will always be with us and we know that she is still helping others.
Thank you
Ivan, Ellen and Stuart.