When a family goes through the death of their baby or child the opportunities for them to make many of those memories are gone.
The hardest thing I still find is not being able to take any more photos of Charlie.
I love taking pictures and always have done.
I have hundreds of pictures showing things me and my family has done over the last 51 years of my life. To not be able to take pictures and make memories is very difficult to get your head round.
Most families always remember the holidays they have been on throughout their lives and enjoy retelling them and remembering the things they all got up to.
Having the opportunity to get away after a loss is so important for every member of the family. Often, when you are grieving, you forget to spend time together and often find talking to each other difficult. The grief consumes you and the motivation to even think about planning a holiday is just to much.
Over the last few years we have wanted to be able to offer a family the opportunity to go away together and spend some valuable time reconnecting. Getting away from their normal environment can allow them to spend quality time together away from the day to day things.
At the beginning of 2018 we launched our Holiday Nomination event. We have been so lucky to have been supported by www.caravanrenting.com who have donated a weeks holiday for our Charity Ball auction on the last 2 years.
This year they have gone one step further by letting us have the use of one of their caravans for a week for a bereaved family to go and spend precious time together.
There really are some amazing people in this world and often we only get to hear about the negatives so we feel very privileged to be able to share a truly positive,generous offer.
We received many nominations for the event and each and every one of them deserved to have a holiday away. Unfortunately we could only choose 1. The trustees spent many hours reading through the nominations and then chatting together to see which families everyone had chosen.
Eventually we made the final decision and had the pleasure of telling the chosen family that they had been chosen. We arranged to meet up with them at our office last week and it was wonderful to actually meet them in person.
This is Lindsey, Dean & Mia Baker from Chesterfield.
Lindsey had sent in the nomination for their family after they lost their little girl, Kayleigh Julie Baker, on 13th September 2017 from Edwards Syndrome.
"I am requesting a holiday for my husband, me and our 8 year old daughter. On 7th September 2017 our baby girl was born, she sadly died 13th September 2017. She had Edwards Syndrome, we are all heartbroken that our little girl was taken from us and left such sadness in our hearts. My husband and little girl, Mia, have been absolutely amazing helping me through this. I am heartbroken and if it wasn't for them I don't think that I would be here. I just want to take our princess on holiday to show her what a brave little girl she is and how much we love her. We can't afford to pay for a caravan this year and it will be so hard not having our baby girl with us but we need to show Mia a lovely time instead of the sad few months we have all had."
They are a lovely family and having met with them it just made us realise that we had made a good decision. Mia was a beautiful young girl with a very big heart who wanted to make her mum feel better. They are going through the hardest time of their lives but they are all being so supportive of each other.
We really hope that the break away will give them the chance to spend some fun time together rebuilding their lives whilst always carrying their special angel with them.
Lindsey has assured us that she will send us some pictures of the holiday and we look forward to hearing about all the things they did together.
This has really cemented the idea that we have always had which is to be able to offer many more families the opportunity of a week away.
We have set up a Just Giving campaign to raise funds to allow us to purchase a 'Charlies-Angel-Centre Foundation' caravan. Once we have our own caravan we will be able to offer 32 families a season the chance to get away together to make new memories.
Over the last year we have supported over 30,000 families in many different ways. If we can offer more breaks away we know it can help bring families a little bit of happiness at a time when all they can see is sorrow.
https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/charlies-angel-centre/holidayhome?social_utm_term=6m5uaopny
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