Mum’s walk in memory of her tragic little boy..
Brooklyn, 11, was stabbed to death by half-uncle in 2019
THE mum of a murdered 11-yearold boy is to take part in a charity walk in his memory.
Sonia Aylmer’s son Brooklyn Colbert was killed by his half-uncle in Limerick in 2019.
Sonia and her family and friends now hope to raise money for the Northstar Family Support Project, where she has recently started as a volunteer worker, during their charity walk in the city today.
She said: “I’m doing the walk from my house to the Three Bridges.
“Myself and Brooklyn have a lot of memories on those bridges, we used to do that walk regularly, so myself and my family will celebrate him on the day.
“Interacting and connecting with people helps me and makes me stronger.
“I found the weekend over Easter very hard because it was a long weekend. It gets harder as time goes on so any type of distraction helps. Time is not a great healer, not at all.”
Brooklyn was beaten with a hammer and stabbed multiple times by his half-uncle, Paddy Dillon.
Dillon was given a life sentence in February last year after pleading guilty to murdering the schoolboy.
Sonia said she wanted to “give back” to so many in the community who have continued to support her through grief, particularly Julie Mckenna of the homeless charity Novas, as well as Kathleen Chada, whose two sons Eoghan, 10, and five-year-old Ruairi were murdered by their father Sanjeev Chada on July 29, 2013.
All donations received via a Gofundme account will go to Northstar. Sonia previously raised €3,000 for Novas in 2020.
She recently started volunteering with Northstar, which provides support to relatives struggling to cope with loved ones who are in addiction.
She said: “I started about five weeks ago and I feel it has helped me.” Northstar co-ordinator Joe Slattery added: “We work with families effected by a loved one’s drug or alcohol misuse and we are the only service within the mid-west that specifically works with families as opposed to working with families and the drugs user.
“Northstar provides ‘time for me’, support for families and works collaboratively with a lot of different services, such as the Novas Respite House in Newport, where a lot of our families go for respite days, holistic therapies, reiki, head massage, etc, and really just get a break from the stresses of their lives. We try to promote individual self-care as opposed to constantly worrying about their loved one and ‘how am I going to fix them’ or ‘everything I need to do for them’.
“Our approach is self-care first, so you can love yourself just as much as you love your loved one and put energy into your own wellness as well as trying to help the other person.”
Northstar also provides free one-to-one family key-worker supports, peer support groups, social activities, arts and crafts, creative writing, drug awareness educational programmes and opportunities to follow a career in cheffing, as well as assisting in funding private counselling sessions.
Separately, Mr Slattery runs a private equine therapy programme in Ballina, near Killaloe, where Brooklyn’s mum has found solace.
Sonia said: “I found a connection with a little white foal because of what has been going on for me.
“I spent time with the horse, taking care of it, and it has helped me. It brings me peace and the fact I’m out in nature, outdoors, all helps too.”
Mr Slattery, a qualified therapist, grew up in Southill and had horses when he was younger.
He said: “In a lot of ways horses helped me with my own emotional release, although I wouldn’t have known it then.
“When people are coming out to me, it is to work on emotional problems, sometimes trauma, sometimes depression, anxiety, so it’s counselling through the medium of interaction with horses.
“There is no horse riding, no horse management or cleaning out stables or any of that.
“You are actually interacting with horses and what that might trigger for you or what memories it might bring up.
“Slowly then, as you are working through it, the horses start representing people and places in your life so they are no longer horses.
“They become metaphors for these other aspects of your life that you are trying to work through.”