9:00am Saturday 28th November 2009
By Rebecca Cain
A MUM who suddenly lost her 19-month-old son has urged residents to back the “amazing” and “brilliant” Child Bereavement Charity.
Toni Jones lost Lewie in July 2005 from undiagnosed heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He was rushed to hospital with breathing problems and died the next day.
The Hazlemere resident, 43, said: “The weeks and months that followed after Lewie died were horrendous. I didn't know what to do.
“It was totally unexpected. Just days before he was running around as brown as a berry with his white blond hair.”
The mum-of-four, married to Steve, 45, said: “When he died I went into overdrive looking after everybody else.
“I felt guilty that I was ignoring my girls as I felt wrapped up in my own grief and I felt as if I was going mad.
“People kept telling me to call The Child Bereavement Charity but I didn't do it until a few months later.”
Founder Jenni Thomas visited and Mrs Jones, of Curzon Avenue said: “She was brilliant, amazing.
“She sat and listened and made me feel that I wasn't going mad and that I was doing a brilliant job with the girls and I wasn't ignoring them at all.
“She told me it was perfectly normal the way I was feeling.”
The charity continued to visit her every three weeks for a year and helped daughters Charlie and Imogen, then 13 and six.
Mrs Jones, a part-time beauty therapist, said: “I am a lot more positive now.”
Welcoming our appeal, she said: “They need all the money they can get. We don't know what is around the corner.”
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