My father died in 2005 after a period of illness that lasted 4 years. At the time I was 14, my brother was 12 and my sister only 9 years-old. From the age of 10-14 my life was spent largely visiting hospitals to see him, and in the late stages, a care home where he passed away.

As a child, I used to run competitively and won many junior athletics events. My father was incredibly proud of this and when I would visit the hospital, nurses would approach me before I got to the ward and would tell me they had heard about a race I’d won that week, he would tell anyone who would be willing to listen! After his death, I stopped running as I’d lost interest and only re-kindled my love for running in 2022.

At the time of his illness and death, myself, my brother or sister received no support from anybody, we received no support in the form of counselling, or dealing with the grief of this matter. I learned to deal with this myself and found my own coping mechanisms over the years.

Late in 2022 I had a brief period where my mental health deteriorated which resulted in me seeking assistance from the GP. Whilst speaking to them I mentioned all of the above to them and they compared my way of overcoming the death of my father as having a cut, which needed stitches but wasn’t stitched, so it would be fine most of the time until the scar was hit again and it would open far more easily than a stitched cut. I found this comparison very useful to understand but it made me realise that not getting the support we should have had at that time has had real long lasting affects not only on myself, but also my brother and sister too.

I went home and thought about this matter for some time, this led to me carrying out research on the support that is available for children to deal with bereavement which was where I came across Winston’s Wish. I found that they are an independent charity that rely on voluntary donations to support children and their families following the death of a parent, sibling or important person and since 1992, they have helped tens of thousands of bereaved children and young people. I thought that I would love to be able to raise money, but more importantly awareness for the charity by completing the London Marathon as a fitting tribute to my father's love for my running.

I hope that that if there are children locally to me who have to go through the death of a parent, their family will be aware of Winston’s Wish as a result of remembering me running the London Marathon and ultimately those children could get some form of support as a result, which myself or my siblings never had. This would give me a huge amount of personal comfort.