Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

We would like to honour the memory of our beautiful daughter, Mia Grace Robinson, who passed away peacefully in our arms on 13th July 2025 in ICU at Manchester Children’s Hospital by setting up a fundraising page to help others.

Her brave battle with Leukaemia was truly an inspiration to us and all that knew her, and we would like to support other local families who’s battle continues. Our wishes are for any donations to be made to the Owen McVeigh Foundation – an amazing local charity, who raise funds to help enrich the lives of children and their families who have cancer providing fun filled days out, concerts, race days, visits to sporting events or even a stay in their luxury Peacock Lodge in Cumbria - just to name a few. (registered charity number 1167794).

Please click to read Mia’s story:

We are very blessed as parents of twins, Mia Grace and Finlay Luca, born 10 weeks early in Naples, Italy at 3lb and 3lb 4oz. Both little fighters from the start, they grew strong in their incubators for 6 weeks until we were able to finally bring them home by air ambulance, to start our lives as a family of 4.

Mia and her brother, Finlay, were truly the best of friends – inseparable from the start, they played, chatted and laughed together, finding joy and happiness in everything they did.

We lived a life full of love, laughter and fun adventures - making memories to treasure was a high priority for us, little did we know that 11 years later, memories and photographs would be the only thing we have of our beautiful girl.

On 3rd March 2024, our lives fell apart, when our beautiful 11 year old daughter was diagnosed with Stage 4 Burkitt’s Lymphoma and Leukaemia, a rare and aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin disease that would require 7 months of aggressive chemotherapy as an inpatient in Alder Hey.

Before our eyes, our lively, energetic daughter, who was so happy and full of life became so very, very poorly. The chemotherapy treatment was intense, requiring IV chemo along with 3 different chemo drugs injected into her spinal cord, 3 times per week, every fortnight. We lost count of the number of consent forms we signed for the surgeries, the number of times we kissed her before the anaesthetic sent her to sleep – the agonising wait to say she was waking up.

It broke our hearts as we shaved off her beautiful long hair, her absolute pride and joy, so brave to face it with such dignity and courage whilst barely able to sit up. But oh how we loved her little bald head – so smooth and soft as we stroked her to sleep, and she was so pretty, she really did pull it off!

But sadly, in April, Mia had more bad news to come when she lost all movement and feeling from the waist down. MRI scans confirmed one of the chemo drugs had caused a spinal cord injury resulting in total lower limb paralysis – the prognosis was unknown. Mia could be facing life in a wheelchair…..and our hearts broke again realising the long and scary road ahead for her.

Yet again, Mia faced this head on – refusing to believe this would be forever. She suffered so many hours of physio whilst feeling poorly, refusing to give up – it was a struggle for her to sit unaided and the effort it took to do the smallest of things, broke our hearts a little more each time. She was fitted for a wheelchair and a standing frame to help with blood flow and circulation, and given so many splints and aids…..it was then we became to realise that life as we knew it had been turned upside down.

Then we heard the words we’d been so desperately longing to hear…..Mia was in remission. We cried and cried….our prayers had finally been answered and we were finally able to go home…..however, a dark cloud still loomed over us.

Another long 3 month admission to the only paediatric spinal ward in the country, Stoke Mandeville hospital near Oxford, to begin her rehabilitation journey. This was very daunting for us all, especially Mia, but we were determined to stay together, never did we want Mia to feel like she was fighting the battle alone – so we unrolled her brother from school, packed up our caravan ready to face the next part of Mia’s recovery.

We were totally astounded, proud and inspired by the strength, courage and determination Mia gave to her recovery – things were truly looking more positive and we all had hope she would walk again in time.

Discharged on 20th December, we had the most wonderful Christmas back at home, making lots of plans for the year ahead.

But this wasn’t to be and our hopes and dreams were shattered again, when on 2nd Feb 2025, blood tests indicated Mia’s leukaemia had returned – this time, a different type, Acute Myloid Leukaemia, caused from the chemo she received last time.

So less than 11months later, Mia was rushed back to Alder Hey where she received more aggressive chemo for 7 weeks…..more gruelling side affects to cope with and the sadness when she realised her hair that was growing into a nice pixie cut, was falling out for a 2nd time. Once again, she faced this with courage and strength – however scared for what the future would hold, frustrated and disappointed that all her plans were once again put on hold. Excluded again from the life she loved so much, from friends and family and all her home comforts, including cuddles from her dog Maggie.

But, we faced it together as a family…..settling into a daily routine of chemo, physio and daily visits from her twin brother Finlay (who never missed seeing her for one day!). She’d so look forward to 4pm when Fin would visit…..we’d all have tea together and watch TV – The Dog House, 1% Club or Death in Paradise were among our favourites.

The chemo was to continue until Mia was in remission, and thankfully after just 7 weeks of treatment, she was given the all clear. However, the only hope for a full recovery was a Stem Cell Transplant, which would be performed at Manchester Children’s hospital. Another treatment that would make her seriously unwell and see her in hospital for a further 6-10 weeks…..but it was her only hope to survive. Once again, she faced another long hospital stay and packed her bags, hopefully for the final time – this time, knowing visitors would be restricted to just me and Dad……heartbroken that her twin brother, her best buddy Finlay, would need to be kept away for fear of infection risk. When they said their goodbyes, we couldn’t hold back the tears – but the promise of daily video calls eased things slightly.

She was so strong and coped with the treatment for 6 long weeks, things were going really well. But suddenly, things went downhill very quickly, and Mia was rushed to ICU and placed into a coma. The newly transplanted cells had started to attack her organs, initially her liver and kidneys and she was treated for Veno-Occlusive Disease and placed on a blood filtration machine.

It was so very lonely during those days, gone were our little chats, laughing, joking, playing games, watching our silly programmes, making plans for the future….instead, all we could do was stoke her head, hold her hand and talk to her. The days were very dark, but we still had lots of hope that after a few days, they would bring her out of the coma and treatment would resume.

But sadly, her little body was simply too weak to cope and following an emergency surgery on her abdomen, she passed away peacefully in our arms just 1 week later from multiple organ failure.

Our beautiful girl, taken from us so quickly, so unexpectedly – never in our worst nightmares did we ever expect this to be the outcome.

Mia, our hero……so brave, so strong, so quietly determined, never one to make a fuss – we will forever be proud of how you faced everything that was thrown at you, always smiling, never once complaining or feeling sorry for yourself, never angry at the cruel hurdles you had to face – but always loving, caring, thoughtful with the most wicked sense of humour and the most beautiful smile that will light our darkest days.

I don’t think we will ever be able to put into words the unbearable pain of saying goodbye to our beautiful brave daughter. Never in our worst nightmare did we ever expect things to end this way…..after everything she had already been through, she deserved to live out her dreams, to go home and be reunited with her brother again, to take those first few steps, to go on all the holidays we planned, to hang out with her friends….do the things teenagers do, to even get back to school…..but sadly, that wasn’t to be and the angels came for her instead.

Nothing will ever take the pain away, but we will hold her in our hearts forever until we can give her that hug we are so desperately longing for.

We understand the pain and hurt children and families are going through, which is why we would like your kind donations to help local families find some happiness and make treasured memories, bringing some joy and light into the darkest of days.

So please give what you can, however small……because making memories with your children is so precious and truly priceless.

Thank you

Love

Sonia, Pete and Finlay xxxx

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