Norfolk mother Kyra Welch writes about her experiences with her terminally ill four-year-old son Kaiden Griffin. Kaiden, who grew up in North Creake, near Fakenham, and now lives in Holt, has a Congenital Heart Defect...
Dear Kaiden, the hardest part of loving you, was knowing that my love wasn't enough to save you.
Loving you, my child with the terminal illness. Knowing that one day my heart was going to be ripped out of my chest.
Loving you has taught me more than I could of ever taught myself. You gave me a purpose, you gave me a love and you gave me a strength.
You gave me a purpose in life, just when I began to think I would lead a life like everyone else you came along.
This little boy with a broken heart came into my life and from that day it all changed.
That day it wasn't about me any more, but me and you.
I carried you and tried to keep you safe for nine months, but I couldn't keep you as safe as I'd wished.
How could I stop this disease from reaching you? How could I stop it getting inside me when it was already in you?
But I knew regardless my love wouldn't let it destroy you, right?
You gave me a love. From the first seconds of bringing you into this world I felt a love, the most powerful and beautiful type of love.
I held this tiny little helpless boy in my arms, and I kissed you. I watched you for nearly every minute the next few weeks, I barely slept, barely ate I just couldn't stop looking at you, you made my heart swell with so much love, a love I never thought I'd feel, a love I didn't even know existed, but it does, and I felt it.
And you gave me a strength. You gave me the strength to bring you into the world, the strength to carry on when I wanted to run.
I wanted to run away from all of it, the hospitals, doctors, machines, everything.
I wasn't ready to burden so much surely? But I did. You gave me a strength to hold your hand every step of the way and prove everyone wrong.
When all I wanted to do was go, if I couldn't have you here I didn't want to be here either, but watching you fight gave me strength.
So really when I look back, it was your love that saved me. My precious little warrior.
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