Thinking of you Son

Well weve had halloween, one of your favourite times of the year and today is bon fire night which we know you loved dearly. We often giggle about you riding around on the rockets in the sky and just playing havock and having a ball. This time of year is so hard, all these wonderful occasions that you loved dearly remind us of happy times with you, but that can make us miss you even more. Your sisters are still struggling with christmas, they said if it wasnt for your memory they just wouldnt do christmas any more, how sad is that? I on the other hand have lost my bah humbug attitude of stressing and worrying about christmas, now i look forward to putting up as many decorations i can and trying to improve on it every year, simply because i know you can still see them and i know you would love it. Any way, il send you another message soon on your face book as youl be in our thoughts daily, in the mean time , take care and remember we love you Mark xxx

My Son's Memorial Trophy

At long last we finally got marks memorial trophy on friday, i only had it long enough to take a couple of pictures as it was being presented to the overall highest achiever at the disabled persons disco that my son used to frequent on saturday night of the 31st of july.

I didnt personally attend the function as my poor heart wouldnt have been able to stay in one piece, but my daughters and other family members and close friends attended and showed their support.
Apparently their wasnt a dry eye in the house during the presentation, but what really did it for my girls was, after the presentation, the young man that won the award thanked the girls for allowing him to be the first to have marks trophy, how beautiful is that ? :).

Anyway, enough of my rambling, im just soooo proud , on with more pictures of the trophy, unfortunately i cant show the presentation for legal and safety reasons.

Photo's of Marks 21st Birthday Celebrations

Mark's 21st Birthday Celebrations

Marks birthday was a mixed bag of emotions as you might imagine, it seemed that if it COULD go WRONG, it DID go wrong, although it turned out fine in the end.

On the friday we had gone over to marks garden/grave to turn the soil, freshen it up and add all his new stuff for his birthday.
That night we went back over at midnight to have a sml celebration to ourselves before the antics of the following day, well it was blowing a gale, we had helium balloons to tie up that blew away, we had sparklers to set that wouldnt light, and most heart breaking was the chineese lanturn we had hope to send up in his honour.
It took that long to try and light it, that after 45 minutes the balloon was in shreds with the wind, i was gutted as was his big sister who had got the balloon for him.

Luckily after freezing and much dissapointment, uncle ian came across and let off some fire works for him which lifted our spirits and put us in good stead for the day ahead.

Forty odd people turned up at marks garden to celebrate his birthday, it was a real honour and did my heart proud.
We sang happy birthday, sprinkled 21st and balloon foil confetti on his grave,set off 3 large bubble machines and finally after some dalay, his helium balloons arrived.

The balloons was the moment everyone was waiting for, 21 bright coloured balloons released in marks honour, he would have loved it :)
Unfortunately the wind whisked them straight away , but we were lucky enough to cath them on camera before they dissapeared.


Friends and family came bareing gifts and cards, some were put straight on the grave, others brought back to the house because of the winds, (but each one finally spent time on his garden, i made sure of that).

Everyone came back to the house for tea/coffee and a bouffet,we played all marks favourite tunes, they stayed until 6pm.
Later that night our family went to finnish the day off with a celebratory drink with friends, so all in all it was a wonderful day and i cant thank everyone enough.

Il be sharing some pics of the day with you asap .

Wow, what a busy time - mark's 21st

Its been real crazy here this past week or so, we have been trying to get the house and garden ready to celebrate my belated sons 21st birthday to honour him.

The weather has been all over the place so we couldnt get a lot done in the garden last week and this week we need to spend most of our time inside.

The plan is to do some last minute weeding and wash the garden furniture on thursday or friday at the latest as the birds love to poop on it.
I have 4 garden benches, a table and 2 chairs and every one gets the hammer from the birds, pesky things .

We will be filling our garden with lots of new assorted and bright windmills and ornaments that my son always looked forward to on every birthday, (that was nans treat every year and she hasnt let us down this year either :) )

We need to go over and strip marks grave/garden of its usual attire on friday and replace it with lots of new and bright things to celebrate his big day, we will be digging the soil over and hopefully reducing the mound of soil that has not yet sank.

Friday evening our very special friend from scotland will be coming to stay, to join in the celebrations along with almost 40 other people on saturday, which would have been/ is marks actual birthday.
However, wel be back over at midnight on friday to toast him at his garden and have a lil bit of private time with him before the hustle and bustle later on the saturday.

The plan for saturday is to meet at the grave site (marks garden) at 1pm where we will be wishing him a very happy birthday,singing and then letting off 21 helium balloons along with two big bubble machines to mark the occasion.
Friends and loved ones will get their chance to say a few words and leave sml gifts, then after that wel be coming back to my house and all being well into the garden to have a bite to eat, chat, remember him and to listen to his favourite tunes and maybe have a sing a long too.

Im actually looking forward to it although i know its going to be really tough, ive been so up a height this week, my brain just wont switch off and the tears are flowing at the drop of a hat so im physically and mentally exhausted, but in the end i wouldnt change his big day for anything :).

An Update On Our Petition

We managed to collect 2,231 signatures for our petition, im totally overwhelmed by the help and support we have recieved during this time.
My eldest daughter handed the copied version of the signatures to our local mp's wife who is giving us her full support and will speak on our behalf if we request it at the council meeting next month, so fingers crossed that we get a fair hearing and the council might meet us half way . x

You made the papers today Little Big Man, but we always knew you were a star!

My wonderful daughter and our family have been putting together a petition to stop the council from removing ornaments and memrobillia from the graves in our cemetary.
Its been a bit of a battle as our local council have been going into shops and buisnesses local to us and collecting the signatures without informing us or getting permission in the hopes of reducing the number of signatures handed in.
We were told we would need at least 500 sigs just to get the council to look at it, we have nearly doubled that already and will continue to collect them for the next while.
please check out the link to the Chronicle newspaper coverage of our story by clicking on the title of this post :) x

More Angels For My Angel

Angels for my Angel

Marks Garden Pictures

I am absaloutely thrilled to bits that despite the soil not sinking on marks grave, that we finally got to dress it up a bit, personally im chuffed to bits with how its turned out :) xxx

Mark- Dancing With Angels

my daughter made this beautiful video for my son, feel free to check it out xxx
(click on the title of this post to see the video)

For the love of good people

As some of you will already know, i buried my son on monday the 25th of january, we had a beautiful service carried out by a spiritulist, susan gibson.
We had stipulated that flowers were to be presented by close family only and that donations would be appreciated, the proceeds to go to marks favourite youth club and to his wonderful friends.
People gave so very generously, we raised 700 pounds for the kids,
out of that money, a trophy is being made, the "Mark Jacobs" trophy, this will be presentented to the best sports achiever of the year, as mark was the special needs football teams mascott and it will be passed on every year.

That really touched my heart, just knowing that different people would be using that club, not knowing anything of mark and yet they will hear such wonderful stories of his time there.

Well to be quite honest, we have been having a real bad time of things lately, the change is beyond anything we imagined, and everything dissapears so suddenly, so it blew me away to hear from my husbands fishing pals that they too had donated the proceeds of their tickets and the winners prize money of a fishing competition they had today to our family to help us out a little.
They too are buying a trophy cup in marks honour and i couldnt be any prouder if i tried, over half of these men have never even met mark, yet they have supported my husband through every operation hed ever had and ultimately, his death.

It does my heart good to know there really are still some good people in the world, and despite our terrible loss and the troubles ahead, we are still being thought of and for that i will be eternally greatful.

Thank you to each and everyone of you that have supported us during this time xxx

Dancing With Angels - Special Announcement

My beautiful little soldier passed away at home yesterday morning at 6.15 very peacefully.

We were told on tuesday 12th of january that mark had no brain activity, after he stopped breathing on the 23rd of december last year and had made no recovery.

There was nothing more the hospital could do for him after several attempts and two brain operations so we opted to bring mark home.

We got him home tuesday afternoon and he hung on in with us until saturday morning at 6.15am.

His funeral will be a week on monday, we have opted to have a spiritulist other than a priest to do the service as my faith is pretty non existant right now, but we are all quite content with the idea.

Due to the circumstances i have no idea when il get back on track here , but in the mean time i want to say a very special and warm THANKYOU to all of you that said prayers and sent your love in our time of need, you will never know how important that was to us as a family.
BLESS YOU ALL.
xxx