Ashleigh’s Story

Te Mana-Mauri
Sunrise-Born 9th July 2016, perfect 8pd baby boy looking a splitting imagine of his dad.
Sunset- 19th May 2017, the day our lives changed forever, the day I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, the day we now remember of the time we had with our son and his memories.

10months, for such a short time of our son’s life he really had the best of both worlds he had farm life & towny life, he had more opportunities then most kids and spoilt as ever, Our son had the biggest cheekiest smile, a real tutu getting into everything and anything, he was just shy of walking all on his own, but as for the crawling he had that marstered, there’s so much more I could go on of our son and for the short time he was with us I could really go on and on about him, but back to the day where our time with him became our memories with him….

My partner, Son and myself were in a car accident to where we lost our son instantly right there and then, myself and partner have being flown to hospital by helicopter having to leave our son there at the site with the first responders is where the first of many feelings kicked in, feeling of regret wishing we couldov stayed with him there. The scene of the accident still so raw to this day I can still see it all when they pulled our son out of the car still in his carseat and told me he was gone. It was a day you wouldn’t wish upon your worse enemy, the days to follow of feeling numb, useless, empty, feeling like your breathing but your body and emotions arnt functioning, days, months and now years the grieving is still so raw like it all just happened yesterday. These emotions are something else you can’t really describe unless you have been there losing a child a baby so young, so helpless. As time has gone by I have found in others that have experienced child loss some comfort knowing where not alone so please reach out and know your emotions any time of day or night are valid and will come in waves for you. 5yrs on and it’s okay I have only just started to mention our son’s name, talk about him and his memories it’s taken time but where getting there.

From this day and my own experience, if I can give any help or advice to some how ease the pain and grief your feeling, it would be to “let them in”, your family, friends, I’m stubborn and I didn’t want any pitty party, I don’t do well with emotions and expressing how I feel (guess this says different, I can ramble along) but I had my mains there from the day we lost our son to now the journey of it all I have my day ones that never gave up on us, always checking in and even though I didn’t reply to them most days cause really last thing you want to do, I look back now thinking I should have let them in a long time ago to help grieve through the heartache of losing our son.

There’s stages you will go through of grief so many stages 5years on and I’m still finding myself wanting scream and yell and that’s ok, let it out trust me you feel better after you do, even put a sad song on and cry it helps. To now my biggest advice, don’t be afraid to talk about your loss, to say your baby’s name out loud to when someone asks how many kids you have don’t forget to include them when you say and when they say where are they, you stand proud but you also don’t have to share your story of what happened, 5yrs on I’m only just getting to this point, to where I can say his name myself or tell people we actually have 3 kids cause the look I get when I say we lost our son goes back to that I don’t want a pity party please but for me I feel relief in mentioning our story now cause yes this tragic accident happened to us but with our family and friends “we let in” really has helped us on this journey.

5yrs later I finally feel like I can enjoy sharing and talking about our son and his memories, time does somewhat help So please take it slow and ride through your emotions with your family and friends it does help, or reach out I’m always here with a listening ear. I have found child loss groups really helpful knowing there’s others out there that understand us. So for now our son Te Mana-Mauri 5years on this journey of loving you, missing you, grieving for you mama and dad love you and will forever share your name and memories, other parents out there your not alone in this journey.