Sally-Anne Stephenson
This book is to celebrate the amazing life of Aaron Stephenson. Aaron was born with an extremely rare syndrome but defied the odds to lead a full and active childhood.
Diagnosed with a muscle wasting condition at 7 years old, he ignored all the doctors and lived his life to the full. Aaron didn't just meet life head on, but wrestled it to the ground and beat it into submission.
He was the one who made sure we went to swim with the dolphins every year. Aaron enjoyed, a wide range of sports, including rock climbing and canoeing. He jetted off to Lourdes a couple of times, loved Disney World and we even went to Lapland to meet Father Christmas where he lives.
"Limited" was just not a word that sprang to mind when you thought about Aaron.
Aaron did more, and touched the lives and hearts of more people in 14 years than most people could possibly hope to in 90 years.
As Aaron's Daddy said to me afterwards, and I have quoted in the book "the only thing worse than losing Aaron would be never to had him in the first place".
Peaceful now and swimming with his beloved dolphins for ever, our angel, the brightest star; Aaron. We love you!
I am Sally Stephenson and I live in London with my husband and four children. As a full time Mum with two disabled children, life isn't always calm and peaceful, but it's certainly full, and exactly how I want it to be. I have learnt all my most important lessons from my wonderful children, they 'define me' shall we say.
Losing Aaron has been the hardest thing that we have had to go through as a family. In so many ways I feel so terribly lost without him, but we are not quitters, Aaron taught us that.
When we lost Aaron, I found myself sitting at the computer for hours at a time, writing down all the things that we had been through as a family. Things I'd even forgotten myself at times. If one person gets some help or inspiration from this book, then I will be very proud of us all.
But mainly I want the world to know what a special boy Aaron was, and still is to hundreds of people across the globe. He inspired thousands of people, and I want him to continue doing that. He had a strength that I have never seen equalled and doubt that I ever will!
I have writen as a hobby for years, but in between the children and the house and being in my third year of a phsycology degree, to name but a few things going on in my life. I don't always have the time to dedicate as much time to it as I would like.
This is something that I needed to do for all of us.
I open my eyes in the morning and you are the first thing I think about, I walk into your bedroom and walk up to your bed. I place my hand on the guard rail and peer over it to look in and see your happy smiling face and the cheeky little grin that defines you in so many ways.
I lean down to you and kiss you as you reach up for your first morning cuddle.
But I don’t get a squeeze back like I used to, because you aren’t there, you’re not lying in your cosy dolphin bed any more when I look for you in the mornings.
You are flying free in the wind with your dolphin friends. I know this because I was the one who went and scattered your ashes with them not long after you decided it was time to leave us.
It's 3.17 am on Thursday the 5th December 1991 in Greenwich District Hospital, London. After twenty three and a half hours of labour, lots of kicking and screaming (me, not Aaron) the nurses finally bundled a tiny baby on my chest and I felt a rush of love that I never knew existed, fireworks went off in my chest, I'd just realised the meaning of life, my son was here.
I knew that something wasn't right straight away, he was very grey and he hadn't cried, just as soon as I'd got my hands on him it seemed, the nurses whisked him back off me. There were people everywhere, doctors coming in and out, lots of shouting, alarms going off. Not to mention the man at the end of the bed giving me so many stitches that I thought he was knitting a jumper. I though he'd at least emerge with a pair of booties for the baby...nothing!
This isn't what was supposed to be happening, we should all be crying with joy now, going all googly eyed over the top of our baby's head, meeting our new baby boy and counting his fingers and toes. Not hearing doctors saying they couldn't get him breathing, asking each other how long he'd been down.
