11/04/2026
🥺❤️
We are incredibly grateful to Mark, who has shared his story about the death of his younger sister, Katie Emma. It is an incredibly powerful read where talks about the excitement he had about the arrival his baby sister at 6 years-old. Katie Emma sadly died on Mark’s 7th birthday. The loss is still felt so deeply by him today.
You can read Mark’s full story on our website. Link below in the comments.
Mark has also shared this beautiful poem, Still, about his sister Katie Emma, which we are sharing with you this National Siblings Day 💜🧡
Still still
No words with you
Just about you
First day at school
Splashing in the pool
Still still
No Sister to look after
A voice in my ear
Sharing laughter
Hearing my fear
Still still
Without capacity to be
Demoralised
Politicised
Feminised
Criticised
Sexualised
Still still
Can’t say have you heard about
The news
I like your new friend
An end
Before beginning
Neither passing on or dying
Still still
Trying to know you
The new curtains on your bedroom window
Suspended in ‘Sixties’ style and colours
Trains, flowers - hopeful and trying
To know YOU
Still still
Remnants of curtain material packed away
Unused to this day
Your mum and dad have gone too
Fleshed out lives
Memories rich and diverse
None of us followed your hearse
Still still
Longing to say ‘I love you’
To see even impressions of your tiny feet
But they didn’t think like that then
Don’t know if you had any to see
Thinking of ‘you and me’
Sister and brother
Still still
Not feeling entitled to call you ‘other’
A gap in my heart
I am here ‘your brother’
I am seven and hiding behind the curtains at my party
I’m manic
Mum not there
Nor you
You are being born
Still still
Looking at the ward of four beds
Four mums, one hollow
Three babies
Pleased to visit mum with Nan
Sound of Music to follow
Still still
Joy and laughter
New hope and escaping the N***s
And repair
But you are still not there
Still still
Two brothers already a pair
But you’re not there
We are without each other
Both still in our loss
For each other
Still still
Remaining still
You didn’t move on
You are where the sun shone
Yet we didn’t think we could use your name
Because you never really came
Still still
So still
Never to move
No strife
Never to speak
Never to love
Yet you have rippled through my life
Still still
The thought of you
With no life stages
I have thought of you
Through your ages
My ages
Still still
I’ll call you
Even if you don’t reply
Loving you till the day
I no longer feel
Loving someone almost not real
Why are you so still still?
