I felt so alone after my baby died... but finally talking about Archie has helped me
Kym Marsh opens up about losing a child
For 15 years, Kym Marsh was too afraid to let go of her son Archie’s ashes. She kept them in a tiny engraved box, which would travel with her everywhere, seeing the world in a way her little boy never could.
Every birthday without him was just a stark reminder of the only gift she could ever give him – to fight for others in his name.
Archie died after being born at just 21 weeks on February 11, 2009. And it was only when Kym was finally able to start talking about her loss in order to help others that she finally felt less alone herself.
Today, the former Coronation Street star also has other reasons to take comfort – she has justice after a cruel rule meant Archie did not qualify for a birth certificate.
And, most poignantly, her son will never now feel alone again either.
For Archie has finally been laid to rest with the last person to ever hold him, Kym’s late dad Dave, who died from prostate cancer in January.
“I felt that there had to be a time when I let Archie rest,” says Kym, 47.
“Fifteen years is a long time to carry his ashes around. They have been everywhere with me – even to South Africa.
“He’d probably have been a terror now, 15 and giving me a nightmare!”
As Archie was cremated, it dawned upon Kym how poignant it would be if he were to join his granddad. “My dad was the last person to hold him. He put him into his coffin,” she tells this week’s OK! magazine.
“When we realised Dad wasn’t going to get any better, I asked him how he’d feel about [being buried with Archie] and he was delighted.
“He said he was happy to go on his journey with Archie, so that’s what we’ve done. We’ve done it as a family and it absolutely felt like the right thing to do.”
Now Kym’s big mission is to get other families to open up about the grief of losing a child.
“Initially I didn’t want to talk about it at all. Part of me felt if I didn’t talk about it, then it wasn’t real.
“But talking about
Archie has helped me and that’s why I try to encourage people to talk as much as possible. There’s still a huge taboo around the subject because nobody wants to talk about a baby who has died – it makes people uncomfortable.
“It can be a very lonely place. Certainly for me as a mother, I felt very alone and quite isolated. But when we started speaking as a family and I realised that everyone else was suffering, that’s been key to bringing us all together. The more we talk, the more we see change, but we’ve still got work to do because that stigma is still there.”
For Kym, now in BBC’S Waterloo Road, it was important Archie was always treated like part of the family.
He was her first child with her then husband Hollyoaks star Jamie Lomas, before they had daughter Polly, now 13, two years later.
“Polly has only ever known him as her big brother and she’ll often say, ‘I wish he was here, he’d stick up for me!’ And I tell her, ‘Yes, of course he would.’” Kym also had two older children with builder Dave Cunliffe – David, 28, and singer and actress Emilie, 26, who now have families of their own. Even the youngest grandchildren know all about Archie.
And Kym is delighted he will finally get a proper certificate to mark his life.
Thanks to The Mariposa Trust, run by grieving parents Andy and Zoe Clark Coates, families who lose a child before 24 weeks can now apply for one.
Kym, an ambassador of the trust, says: “It seems like such a small thing, but it’s huge for our family. Archie will never be forgotten to us, but now we will have some kind of recognition of his life and that means everything. It’ll be so emotional to have it in my hands.”
Read Kym’s full interview in this week’s OK! magazine, out now.