Siblings are your first best friends. Imagine having them taken from your world and never seeing them again, and all you have left are memories. These children are then pulled from such an innocent world into a world where bad things can happen, they can suffer with worry, anxiety, separation anxiety, nightmares and guilt. They have all these feelings and emotions, and age depending may not be able to express how they are feeling. The loss of a sibling is a loss felt deeply at every major life event for the rest of their lives, it is also the realisation at such an early age of the fragility of life. Bereaved parents can no longer protect their child who has died, but they can protect their memory and in the end memories are all we have left. Therefore, I believe that by giving the sibling a special gift it is help keeping the child’s memory alive. This automatically warms the parents’ hearts and can put a smile on their face. During these difficult times, doing and paying for memory making can be the last thing on an adult’s mind, however, by us helping take that off their hands, we can help the family during a difficult part of their grieving process. This can then also help the child feel special, loved and included. We must remember; these children are grieving too.

Zara is such a happy loving little girl. People would never guess the emotional trauma she had been through at the age of 3 and the worry’s which she still suffers with. After Zachary died, she suffered with separation anxiety, in her mind, if we left her again, we might not return, just like Zachary. She has got herself so worked up before because she hears the words poorly and she automatically thinks of death and that person is dying. She suffered with anxiety, always asking if all the doors and windows were locked, she was scared of fires and car accidents, she hated going to the Doctors and was frequently having nightmares. On her first day of school, birthdays and Christmas, she visits a graveyard and puts down gifts for her baby brother of which memories of him is all she has left. She draws pictures of her family; she draws one of her brothers with wings and the other one without.  Despite all of this, I have had professionals tell me how amazing Zara is, and how well she has processed and coped with Zachary’s death. However, professionals have commented that this may have been in part down to the amount of memory making which Jordan and I do with Zara. After Zachary died, we got things made such as memory bears and blankets made out of his clothes ( Zara picked her favourite clothes of his), lockets with his pictures in which she loves to wear, jewellery with his hand prints on, hand casting, a Prints for Life Book and even now she puts things in her memory box of Zachary and frequently looks through it, the list goes on and on.  We read a lot of books with hidden meanings around death, love and grief, and we talk openly and honestly.  

In light of the above, I want to be able to help other children and their families, help them feel special and loved and help them have a memory of their sibling which will last forever. Therefore ‘Zachary’s Gift’ will be a project within the Registered Charity ‘A Child of Mine’, the aim is to gift newly bereaved siblings a gift of their choice from the list provided.These will only be from reliable companies which I trust and have used myself in order to ensure that only the greatest care is given with each gift.

In order to raise funds for ‘Zachary’s Gift’ a group of us are taking on the Yorkshire 3 Peaks on October 17th 2020 and aim to do this within 12 hours! These are the mountains of Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent.  This will not be an easy task as none of us are experienced hikers (I need to buy a pair of trainers let alone walking boots!). This is a 24.5 mile hike with an upwards ascent of 1585 meters (5200ft). Myself and Jordan have also done Snowdon as practice wnd also have plans to complete Scafell Pike in September aswel. I also aim to do other charitable events to raise funds such as car boot sales, coffee mornings etc. If you would like to donate towards ‘Zachary’s gift’ within ‘A Child of Mine’, I would be very grateful for every penny raised to help these children in their time of need. As this is the launch of Zachary’s Gift we need all the help we can so anything you can raise or spare would be amazing!

A Child of Mine charity is a wonderful charity that helps families after the loss of a child all over the UK, they also provide training and education to healthcare professionals from a parent’s perspective. I feel privileged to be able to set up the ‘Zachary’s Gift’ project within this charity and help families that have lost a child. This is a charity that’s very close to my heart and that has helped me and Zara more than they can imagine over the last few years. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this x.