This story from the Manchester Evening News really got to me. Will you help?
A mum has turned to crowdfunding for a tragic cause… a gravestone for her three-month-old baby.
Felecia has managed to save £1,000 after her tragic ‘cot death’ loss – now she needs some help.
A grieving mum has launched a fundraising appeal to pay for a gravestone for her baby daughter who died when she was just three months old.
Chyra Esmae Mckoy was a perfectly healthy baby when she was born.
But just three months later she was found lifeless in her bedroom by her mum Felecia McDonald.
She died of sudden infant death syndrome, known as cot death.
At the time, Felecia, 26, was given help organising her funeral.
She was told by St Joseph’s Cemetry in Moston she’d have to wait around 18 months before a gravestone could be added.
That time has now passed and single mum Felecia, from Blackley, who has another daughter Cheyenne, three, has been told it will cost just under £3,000. She has saved over £1,000, but has now turned to crowd funding to raise the remainder.
Felecia said seeing her daughter’s unmarked grave ‘upsets her every day’. She wants a memorial installed before what would have been Chyra’s second birthday on November 18.
At the moment, the grave is marked with a small temporary memorial. Felecia said a proper headstone will help with the grieving process.
She said: “Obviously we never expected something awful like this to happen. No-one does. It just turns your world upside down. At the time of her funeral I had a lot of help, from the funeral company and other people because she was a baby.
“And I never realised just how expensive a headstone would be. I have tried to do it on my own but at the rate I can save it will take so long to pay for. It upsets me every day she hasn’t got one.
“I think about her every day but I haven’t stepped foot in the cemetery since her first birthday last year, it’s too upsetting.
“But having a stone would mean her burial place is properly marked and we would have somewhere we could go and grieve for her.”
Speaking during Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, Felecia said: “I remember it like it was yesterday.
“She was such a bright, bubbly, happy baby and so far advanced for her age. She put a smile on all our faces. We could never have imagined anything like this would happen, not even in our worst nightmares.
“But she will never, ever be forgotten.”
To donate to Felecia’s fund for her daughter click here .
