29/05/2026
FoS is 13 today. 🦋
Resharing the lovely post Rosie wrote 3 years ago. 🫶🏻
Today is Friends of Serenity's 10th birthday 🥳
In honour of this massive milestone I'll be sharing just a handful of our achievements over the last 10 years throughout the week. To start this, I felt it only right that we acknowledge the reason FoS exists and the incredible woman at the centre of it. I wrote this a few weeks ago and it seems an apt time to share it, artwork by my ever patient sister, Holly.
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10 years is a long time. A long time to be missing your child, a long time to be fighting for others, a long time to be banging the drum, a long time to be running a charity. Yet despite this, despite the hurt, the frustrations, the grief, the juggle, Jo has never given up. She continues to share her story, her resolve, her determination, her heart - her Luke. Knowing what she went through; the unbearable loss of her first born son, that she walked through the dark and cold tunnel of despair and grief to a life she never imagined she’d have to live, and that when she got there she stood still and held up a torch for those coming behind her, providing blankets and guidance, is to me, astonishing. Not only did she do that once, she continues to stand there now, 10 years on.
She remained standing there through two subsequent anxiety-filled pregnancies, through family and career changes, and she weathered the storms of conflicting priorities, bureaucracy changes, and the ever changing demands on the charity (not to mention a pandemic and a cost of living crisis). Others have come and stood with her to help lighten the load, and sometimes they find they are called to help somewhere else and they need to move on. They leave with Jo’s gratitude for their company and support and her understanding and well-wishes for their future endeavours. I feel privileged that I am currently able to stand by her to hold a torch and man a stack of blankets. I have learnt from her compassion and wisdom, and I hope that one day my legs will be as sturdy as hers. If there should come a time when she needs to take a seat and have a break I am sure that the foundations she has laid and the footprints she has left, will leave the rest of us in great stead for the future.
For now, let us remember that the reason Friends of Serenity exists, at the core of it all, is a mother whose baby died. A mother who has gone through the unimaginable and didn’t want others to suffer in the same way, a mother who takes the love she has for Luke and shares it freely with all those who have come through the tunnel behind her, even now, 10 years on.
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Jo, we are so thankful for you and everything you do.
Rosie xx
East Lancashire NHS ELHT&me
