I went to a charity auction night tonight for The Charlie Jones Foundation which was set up by a very brave friend of mine following the tragic death of her baby at just 4 months old. Charlie had hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), which I don't profess to understand the details of. What it did mean was that Charlie fought an incredibly hard battle from the moment he was born, and spent a large part of his short life in the PICU at Southampton General Hospital. His death came as a shock as he was out of hospital and during his check up just days before he died his parents were told he was doing very well.
So to make sense of losing their baby, Donna and Dean and a couple of their very good friends set up the foundation in Charlie's honour to raise money for the PICU and for research into HLHS. To date on the donations website they've raised just shy of £2500 and tonight they raised over £2500.
I can't begin to understand the pain of losing a baby. I've never particularly wanted to have kids, never felt that 'thing' that other women feel when they hold a tiny baby in their arms or watched a toddler in the park. But the thought of having a baby, a life that you've created, and to have to carry that baby to their grave at such a tiny age is possibly the cruelest thing I can think of having to live through.
I have nothing but admiration for Donna and Dean, for even being able to think about putting one foot in front of another each day, let alone doing something as incredible as raising all that money in hopes of saving another mother and father from the heart break they have to live with for the rest of their lives.
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