Ricky died one kilometre from our dream life

I found as a mother, when my son Ricky died, part of my soul died and I’ll never be complete again. It doesn’t matter how many other children you have or how many other people come into your life, part of me died with him on the 8th of May 2007. He was 19.

We packed up our dream home because Ricky died one kilometre from our dream life. It was too much for me to pass that spot every day. We were packing up our home, packing up his room and you don’t realise what you’ve lost until you’re packing each individual piece of clothing for the final time. It just hits you so hard.

Ricky’s mates wanted to spend the anniversary with us so we put on a BBQ and talked about Ricky, and the year without Ricky. We let 100 balloons go and all the kids wrote a little message and attached it to the end of the balloons. But we didn’t just do it here. We actually let the balloons go here, in Laidley, where he died, Bribie Island, Bathurst and Cloncurry. Five places around Australia let the balloons go at 2 o’clock for Ricky. So we were all united, his family and friends, though we weren’t together. It was really nice because we know other people aren’t forgetting him.

Ricky was an organ donor and while you don’t really think about it when your child is alive I am so glad that he got to give the gift of life to three people, including a little baby girl. It just helps to feel that he lives on.
 

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