Father's Day - Written by Tom, Felix's dad.

They say that where there is despair, there is also hope; where there is darkness, there is also light; and where there is sadness, there is also joy. Even now, 5 months following Felix’s passing, there is still the beauty of his brightness in my eye. The glimmer that his short life has had in bringing about positive change. Felix has helped to show us the incredible value of family and of friendship; the perseverance of pulling together and being there for one another, he is our true star. 

In spite of all this, I cannot lie, I miss him so deeply. The reminders are there. The aching in my heart. The bedroom that’s now an office, would have been where he laid his tiny head. The drawers full of his clothes, put aside, now gathering dust. The empty silence of the night, that I still have to fill with sounds from my headphones in order to sleep at night. His picture on my mantle will never move. His ashes will be spread to every corner of this planet I travel, as I did with my fathers ashes. 

I'm 27 years old… I have buried my Father and now, my Son. Father’s Day for me, is just another day. However, with each passing year, it will inevitably become easier. For time does not entirely heal, but it certainly does mend the wounds just enough, in order to cherish rather than feel sorrow. 

Felix Simon Cooper-Coxhead, you will forever be upon my horizon. Your presence was a part of our present; and just because you were not destined to be with us in person, you remain as much a part of our lives as every bluebell flower, every drop of rain, every warm summer breeze and every cloud in the sky. You may be gone from sight but you shall never, ever, leave our hearts.

"The grey-rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

- J.R.R. Tolkien

 To recently bereaved parents, I say this to you… The pain of saying goodnight to your baby will never leave you; their memory and the immense love you feel for them will not leave you either. There will be so many things that will help you to remember and cherish your baby; because you will, forever be, their mummy and daddy. And, as the weeks and months pass by, you will try to piece your lives back together, a life without the physical presence of your baby within it. So please, be gentle with yourself, allow grief into your life, for grief, as my partner and I say, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All of that unspent love that gathers up in the corners of your eyes, and becomes that lump in your throat and that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love - with no place to go. And if we didn’t feel it, we wouldn’t know love.

Always, Felix's dad.