Plea by mum in bee tribute to her Lily Mae
A MUM is raising funds for a bee statue as a tribute to her daughter who committed suicide.
Lily Mae Sharp was aged 13 when she took her own life just four days before she was due to attend the Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena on May 22, 2017.
Her mum Victoria Sharp, of Prestwich, is now fundraising for one of the Bee in the City sculptures to be placed in Heaton Park as a permanent tribute to her daughter.
After the Manchester Arena attack last year many people described the 22 victims as ‘22 bees,’ and Victoria said picturing Lily as the 23rd bee has helped with mourning her daughter.
She came up with the idea to raise funds to purchase the ‘Lock Keeper’s Bee’ sculpture and managed to secure it during the auction last week, but the bids increased to more than the £6,000 she initially raised.
Victoria is now hoping to raise more than £13,500 to fund the cost of the bee as well as the cost of delivery and the plinth it is placed on. She is also hoping the bee will raise awareness of mental health issues and could be somewhere her other daughter, Bella, can go to visit to remember her big sister.
Victoria is going to have a plaque attached to the statue, which will have the numbers for mental health charities Samaritans and Papyrus UK on it. So far there have been £12,614 donations made to a Go Fund Me page.
Victoria, who was living in Sandbach when Lily died, said: “I always think of her as the 23rd bee.
“I thought it would be a lovely tribute and somewhere nice for people to go.
“It’s for mental health too. Lily was so young, she was only 13.
“Kids of that age should be playing with Barbie dolls. There will be a plaque with Samaritans and Papyrus numbers on.
“I raised £6,000 but during auction the bids were going up and up.”
She added: “Lily was wonderful. She was such a lovely girl, she was beautiful and full of life.
“There was no warning about what she was going to do at all.
“The coroner said during the inquest it is not something anybody could have known about. In my head she is the 23rd bee. It has helped with mourning.
“I think I like to throw myself into doing stuff like this,” said Victoria.