#another time at the school we had prosecco for a teacher's birthday

[lvmarston-blog]

Vera Maggie Marston

A few days before V’s funeral we met with the vicar at our Church to discuss what we’d like to do to say goodbye to our baby girl.

Russell suggested to us that we should write V’s life - parents spend their lives trying to point their children in the direction they think is right for them, sometimes causing friction and resentment - it’s something parents cannot control.

That fight for controlling what our child gets up to has been taken away from us, so we can control our Vera’s life by writing down what we hoped she would become, what we wanted her to be and what mischief she may have gotten up to.

This is V’s Story

Our baby girl would have entered the world on Christmas Eve, just before the clock stroke 12. I would have been in labour for a good few days, probably enduring some drama as she was brought into the world. She is as perfect and breathtakingly beautiful. She has my nose, Chris’s long legs and big feet, and when she opens her eyes to look up at us for the first time, Chris’s deep and thoughtful eyes stares straight back at me.

V caused us a sleepless first 3 months, I struggled to breastfeed and she was a hungry baby, Chris and I spent the cold winter mornings snuggled up in bed watching rubbish on TV and staring in awe in how our daughter was changing on a daily basis. Little V started growing wild curly dark hair, which tumbled around her and was so very perfectly placed.

V grew very quickly, she was always long for her age and we had to buy her clothing a few sizes up to accommodate them. She is so intelligent and crawled early, demanded solids early and reached every developmental milestone before we could catch up. We spent the next 6 months chasing around after her as she got faster, started walking and talking.

She became best friends with her cousins Brook and Iyla. Brooke was always be dragging V to play dress up, dollies and make-believe. Iyla would trick her into doing things and blame V when it went a bit wrong. Lottie and I would be in hysterics as Iyla tried to teach her things like throwing and catching, cuddling her toys and playing with new interactive musical ones! Vera has a special place for her cousin Luke, who she used to cuddle up to and demand she napped with. Her boyish streak came out with Josh and Ollie, and in the summer they’d tear around Auntie Amy & Uncle Phil’s garden playing swords and saving the damsel in distress.

Chris and I tried to settle her into playschool, which she happily went off to play when I dropped her off, but kicked and screamed bloody murder when Chris did. We picked a playschool near Chris’s work, she used to scream and throw herself at Chris when he collected her in the evening, proudly showing off the drawings she’d scribbled or the amount of glitter she’d been able to get onto a page.

Vera was and always will be a daddies girl, she fed better when Chris was around, bathed better and slept better when he read her a bedtime story.

Vera is the bestest biggest sister we could ask for, when they arrived home she threw her arms around them, offered her all her toys but got a bit frustrated when they couldn’t quite play with her wooden kitchen at a few weeks old.

Chris and I shed a good few tears on her first day at school, she walked in with her head held high and even stopped to help a particularly shy classmate into lesson. This shy little girl would become her very best friend, they’d go to Primary and Secondary school together and would continue on into their adult lives holding hands just as they did on their first day of school.

V thrived at school, she would come home of an evening full of stories of her day, what they got up to and how she used to get scared when the teachers told her off for talking. At parents evenings we were told she was a model classmate, doing well in her grades but she talked a lot. Chris always thanked me for giving her that trait!

Chris, her siblings and I went on several family holidays with our brother and sister in laws and their cousins, we spent sun soaked days watching the kids dive in and out of the pool, exploring the quaint French and Spanish seaside towns and in the evenings, whilst the kids were in bed enjoyed drinking games sipping on sangria!

For big birthday’s we treated our little family to trips to New York, one extra special year we spent Christmas in the Big Apple, waking up on Christmas morning and taking the kids to our favourite pancake house before having a Christmas walk in Central Park - each time V would ask us to take her to the spot where we got engaged, she used to love Chris telling her the story of how he proposed to mummy, and how grumpy mummy had been just before he popped the question!

The summer before Vera was due to start her first day of secondary school, Chris and V spent a daddy and daughter day in London, picking our her new bag, shoes and stationery before heading over to the Imperial War Museum, where V shared her grandpop’s love of history and enjoyed learning what children her age used to get up to during the Wars and in the Victorian ages.

On her first day of secondary school, V and her now not-so-shy best friend walked through those doors hand in hand, just as they always do! Chris and I watched from afar, aghast at how quickly our Little V had grown up into a beautiful, intelligent and independent young lady.

V’s first few years at secondary school saw her boyish streak shine, she loved PE and sports and joined the girls football team, Chris shipping her off to Sunday football league games and the two of them snuggled on the sofa watching Manchester United games whilst I busied myself with her less football-obsessed siblings!

V continued to flourish, her curly brown hair now set i soft waves and her hazel eyes sparkling, she towered over most other girls in her year and she was clearly popular with boys, to which Chris always embarrassed her and insisted he’d get out baby photographs the second she brought a boy home for tea.

Little did we know her first boyfriend would be our friend James & Helen’s son, Olly! At 14 they were super cute, Olly taking her out to the cinema and going round to each other’s houses after school.

As she entered her GCSE years, V started drifting away from her grades, preferring her football and sports over studying and doing homework, Chris & I eventually staged an ‘intervention’ with her very clever cousin, Brooke - who helped her get back on track by mentoring her through coursework and carefully coaxing her towards the straight and narrow. She often went to Brooke when things weer going on, she’s the perfect role model for V!

Throughout her school she constantly wondered why she was called Vera, she got picked on by other girls for having a ‘vintage’ name and we always told her the same story - she was named after a strong, amazing woman and she needed to do her great-grandma proud by carrying her name and being the best she possibly could!

After many late nights, tears and tantrums V received really great exam results. Chris and I took her our for her favourite meal - pizza - to celebrate and let her sip on prosecco with mummy!

V had chopped and changed what she wanted to do in her life, however was in admiration of grandpop’s career in fire fighting, as well as Auntie Lottie and Nanny Maggie’s career in caring. She’d decided she was going to college to learn nursing, specifically in trauma as she loved the pace and pressured situations of being in A&E.

V flourished at college, she and her not-so-shy best friend studied different subjects at the same place, as they hit their late teens they started venturing out and hitting the Essex tiles. One particular night Chris spent the evening diving in and out of local hot-spots in search of V, who had promised to be home hours earlier. After finding her propping up herself and her friend at the bar, we were treated the next morning to her signature breakfasts as a way of saying she was very sorry...

Her childhood sweetheart Olly had gone off to university far from home, and they had decided to separate to allow themselves time to grow up a bit. V continued to bring a few new boyfriends through our doors, much to her ridicule by Chris and her siblings, but we always knew her heart still lied with him.

V enjoyed baking and spending weekends at her usual spot with her dad, happily watching their favourite football team win another ‘key’ game... she inherited Chris’s stubbornness, often sloping off in a huff if things hadn’t quite gone her way, especially when it came to household chores. She enjoyed accompanying me to my monthly ‘ board meetings’ where The Board of Ladies would join for an evening of good food, bubbles and gossip!

As V headed off to university, the house fell silent, V was the life and soul of our house and her siblings felt lost without her. V’s first few months at uni showed she was desperately home-sick, missing her friends and family - she often video called us asking to see our family cats and checking we hadn’t changed her room into a man-cave for dad!

Chris and I spent long weekends visiting her, V proudly showing us around her campus, she was the only one out of our family go go to university; she took pride in that and invited her younger siblings to spend weekends with her, showing them her local pub and introducing them to her uni friends.

When V returned from university she picked up her dream job in a local hospital, working both with her dad and auntie Lottie. I loved seeing her and dad trot off together in mornings she was on a day shift, dad poking fun at her for the jack-ups she got in her uniform trousers as her long legs poked through.

Eventually V flew the nest, moving in with her childhood sweetheart, Olly. It gave Chris and I a great excuse to pop round to James and Helen’s, meaning we had fun fueled days out and cosy evenings in.

Olly proposed to V in New York, in her favourite place, they broke the news to us via video in the form of them finding the place Chris proposed to me all those years ago an flashing her stunning ring, their faces raw from tears and smiles beaming so widely!

V started a new section of her career in community nursing, which allowed her to spend more family time with us all, and allowed her to spend a rare Birthday & Christmas with everyone combined, which was especially poignant for us. Christmas is such a special time of year for the Marston’s - Chris and I remembered cooing down to our beautiful big eyed Little V and whispering ‘happy birthday’ one moment, then ‘Happy Christmas baby girl’ the next.

V would go on to marry her sweetheart, and in a cool Spring morning become a mother herself, bringing a perfect, bouncing baby granddaughter to complete her story, so she can start writing her very own story for her baby daughter.

Our darling baby girl had grown into the perfect, stunning young woman we had dreamed always dreamed of. She is determined, intelligent and caring - even if she does have big feet! - our sweet natured, stubborn and thoughtful baby girl makes us prouder and prouder every day to call her our daughter. She lights up a room and has an infectious, albeit annoying, laugh; she is a terrible liar, passionate about football and baking (often baking cupcakes for her patients) and is the friendliest, most wonderful person - Chris and I pinch ourselves that we created her and love our first born with all our hearts.

Our sweetest Vera, our story for you. You had your life taken away but we have given you a life and character which will forever be with you. We’re so sorry we can’t bring this to life and to our reality. We are so proud of what you have achieved bringing our community of friends and family together and for that we are eternally grateful for your journey so far.

With all our love, mummy & daddy xxx