WE PUT ROBINS IN LIGHTS
ROBIN STATUES LIT UP BY MUM AND DAUGHTER ON POIGNANT JOURNEY
A MEADOWS mum who was given a year to live is working her way through a bucket list with her daughter so that she remembers the “fun times together”.
Lene Pearce, 41, pressed the button with daughter Lexi-ann, 5, to light up the robin statues on display at Nottinghamshire Hospice as part of the Hoodwinked project.
It is the latest in a series of activities she is doing with her daughter since being diagnosed with the terminal condition motor neuron disease in September last year.
The former private nanny said: “The longer I last, the longer she will remember.
“They gave a year but still, here I am. I put that down to not dwelling on it – I’ve got to be strong for my daughter.
“I took her to Disneyland Paris for her fifth and to Australia to show her where I used to live. The hospice are helping me make a memory box with things from when she was born.
“She doesn’t know any different. She knows mummy is really poorly and going to heaven soon but I do not think she grasps what that actually means.
“She’s not quite at the age where she will remember but I want her to know me as a happygo-lucky mummy – if, unfortunately, not so lucky.”
Miss Pearce first noticed a weakness in her knee two years ago. The symptoms got worse and she has now been using a wheelchair for 18 months.
Doctors originally thought it was MS but then changed their diagnosis. “It was that five percent of hope shattered,” she said.
“It was heartbreaking, just knowing I wanted to have Lexi later in life and now I will not get to see her grow up. I want her to remember the fun times. We have had amazing times.”
Their next trip together will be to Lapland UK for Christmas. But yesterday, they got to turn on the lights for the Hoodwinked statues’ last outing before they are auctioned next week.
Nottinghamshire Hospice is hosting all the robins this weekend for an event called Farewell to the Flock. Lexi-ann’s favourite was the new Gold Winger because of the colour, and her mum described the event as “amazing”, taking a particular fancy to the Robin Hood statue.
This summer the 33 statues were placed around the city for the public to enjoy – and according to Nottingham City Council, 100,000 people did so, from as far afield as Devon and Manchester.
They will be sold off at an auction on October 18 at St Mary’s Church and the money will go to the hospice, which cares for people with life-limiting and terminal illnesses.
Rowena Naylor-morrell, the charity’s chief executive, said: “The response from the public on the street has been amazing.
“Now you can buy [the statues] for your garden, front room or just share them with the community. It [Hoodwinked] has also been about changing perceptions about who we are [at the hospice] and a fat cheque would be sensational in terms of the care we can offer.”
Ben Reed, representing Wild In Art, the group who helped the city council deliver the project, said he had never heard of a city where only one statue had had to be removed because of damage. He said: “This has been hugely successful and generated tens of thousands of smiles.”