Sue & Adrian's Christmas story 

 "Oh how I look forward to Christmas every year… the family get-togethers, children opening Christmas presents, the smell of pine, Christmas Carols, going to church, the big turkey dinner, the whole experience, just the very thought of it leaves me cold.

Celebrating the birth of one baby and the gift he gave to the world, is difficult, no impossible, when all I can think about is the death of my baby who didn’t even get to open his gifts under our tree.

We found him cold and blue on Christmas Eve

Adrian was 7 months old when we found him dead, cold and blue in his cot on Christmas Eve morning. I was only 22 and his dad just 21. The three of us so young.

The doctor, the police, the undertaker arrived and within one hour my beautiful baby boy was gone. He was buried on New Year’s Eve 1984. Thus began my ‘Christmas story’.

Adrian didn’t get to open the last door on his advent calendar

I still can’t listen to Away in a Manger sung by children without crying. The smell of pine trees – we’d had a real tree for Adrian’s first Christmas – always triggers memories. It was years before I let my subsequent children have advent calendars in the house. I found the countdown to that day unbearable. Adrian didn’t get to open the last door on his calendar.

I still have it and some of his presents, his dummy and clothes and lots of other silly bits and pieces in a box, Adrian’s Box. It contains his whole, short, little life. One box.

I have been so wrapped up in remembering his death that I forget to remember his life

But, it is only now, writing this piece, that I realise what a big mistake I have made. I have always allowed his death to be bigger than his whole life. Would I have done this if it had happened at a different time of year? Would the whole thing have been just a little less painful if he’d died on an ordinary day, in an ordinary month, one that I could fill with nothing but thoughts of him and of his life? My special day for remembering my baby.

Over the years, 23 of them to be precise, I have been so wrapped up in remembering his death – his death at Christmas – that I forget to remember his life.

I'm not going to allow that black cloud to creep up as December approaches

For seven short months he brought me such joy. My first baby, my parents’ first grandchild, he was adorable. Despite being a little bit premature he was thriving. He had just cut a tooth and the way he could zoom across our lounge in his baby-walker was to be admired.

I loved settling down with him in the late afternoon and holding him while we both dozed before daddy came home from work. I was such a proud new mum. I loved pushing him out in his pram, nobody could fail to notice what a handsome chap he was.

And such a happy baby too. So content, so undemanding, so easy to look after. My Adrian, my baby.

This year I am not going to allow that black cloud to start creeping up as December approaches. His birthday, 26 May 1984, was a much, much nicer day."

In memory of the life of Adrian Hannibal – born 26 May 1984.

'Away in a manger, no crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head’

Sue, Adrian’s mother