Finleys Footprints

There is a weird period of time in the timescale of grief. I don’t know if it arrives for everybody at the same time, but I would bet money on the fact that it appears for all. When your baby or child dies the world can become a very dark place. It can seem like you are fighting just to stay alive, there can seem to be no point to the day.

I discovered the battle of organising the funeral and volunteered for this. In the war zone that had become my life I spent hours each day searching music, readings, flowers. We had tasks to do, even if they were incredibly hard. There were missions out into enemy territory – the real world. The real world where everything seems too bright, too loud, too happy and full of traps to catch you. Booby traps like shelves of nappies in unexpected places in shops, or the screaming baby around every corner. The venture into the most dangerous place of all Mothercare, where instead of being on R&R with our family we were facing large numbers of enemy troops and booby traps trying to find an outfit for our newborn to wear in his forever bed, before we buried him.

The battle of the funeral ended in a stalemate, with no ground won or lost. And the hours after the funeral, when my mind debriefed suddenly became quiet. The shock and realisation hit me that all of the other soldiers, my comrades were going on R&R tomorrow.

A few weeks after Finley was born and my life looked like a no man’s land on a misty morning. I woke up one day and suddenly I was on my own in a barren, burnt and blackened piece of land. The mist had come down and I could not see anybody. I knew they must be there because the war is over, but to find them I had to find the courage to walk out in a world that looked different. A world with different landmarks and slightly hazy, dim views. On the other side of that patch of land life is green and bright, life has carried on for other people. I am surrounded by the letters that were left, all of them saying if you need anything just ask. But the people that left those letters are long gone.

I picked up the phone but the line is burnt and they can’t hear me, my voice was shaken and I couldn’t hear. After a while I began to venture into the wasteland, always heading back because it just seemed to far to get across that No Man’s Land of my Grief.

It’s a very lonely, scary walk to find your way across that land, when you have become accustomed to being alone and in the greyness. Sometimes a friendly hand, or word in that space of time from maybe 2-6 months is when it is most needed.


As the time goes by, I am 2 and half years After Finley, the interactions have changed. The emotion is not so raw and I get a simple kind of pleasure and pride about hearing people say how Finley has stayed in their hearts, how their lives have changed, how when they heard the news they held their child, imagining what it would be like to not lose that. If one person appreciates their life more because of Finley then his life has not been wasted. He lives on through their smiles.

People are able to remember their baby, or a baby that they know in two ways through my work. They can fundraise and dedicate a cold cot in memory of their baby to a hospital. They can also donate £30 and a butterfly box will be supplied to a hospital, with a letter in explaining who it is supplied in memory of. Specific items can also be donated to us, to be included in butterfly boxes.