"The angels came and took daddy away and he’s now a star in the sky"
Mum of Scotty members, Bella and Evie Lockwood, tells her story.
Mother of two, Laura Lockwood, lost her husband Staff Sergeant Michael Lockwood of the Royal Horse Artillery, in May 2014 to a brain tumour. Michael passed away at the age of 36-years-old after spending 16 years in the Army. He left behind two children – Bella (10) and Evie (9) – who were four and two-years-old at the time.
Here, Laura shares her story and explains how she told her daughters of the loss of their father, how she and her girls remember, and how bereaved Armed Forces children’s charity, Scotty’s Little Soldiers, has provided them with a vital support network.
I met Michael through my sister, Claire, who is in the Army. We met seven years before we actually got together in 2008, at Claire’s 21st in 2001. He was kind, caring, funny, charming, bonkers and he had the most incredible smile and nice shoes. He was different to everyone else I’d met.
He proposed to me in January 2010 just before Bella was due to arrive, when he was on rest and recuperation leave from Afghanistan. We were celebrating our Christmas as Michael had had his leave postponed. He was due to come home before Christmas, but his rest and recuperation leave was postponed until January.
The proposal is a funny story. Michael had gone out shopping to the January sales with my sister, Claire. I was at my parents’ house and I was quite cross with him because he’d gone shopping when we were supposed to be celebrating Christmas with my family. When he arrived back, he told me to come upstairs as he wanted to show me what he had bought. I followed saying ‘I can’t believe you’ve been shopping when we’re supposed to be celebrating, I’m really annoyed with you’. He said to me, ‘look at this jacket and then when I turned around, he was on one knee. He put his hand on my pregnant belly and holding the ring in the other said ‘will you be mine forever’. To which I replied ‘yes’.
My fondest memory of Michael was when the girls were born. Just the way he would talk to them, tell them how much he loved them and would always protect them. I never heard him sing but he would sing to the girls to get them to settle without me knowing, although really, I sat and listened on the stairs.
Michael passed away in May 2014 following a brain tumour. He died two days after Bella’s fourth birthday and Evie was two. Explaining to the girls that their father had died was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. I explained to them that daddy had been poorly with a horrible germ called cancer and that he went to live in the stars. This was the only way to explain to them at such a young age, when they kept asking “when are we going to see daddy?”
All through his illness I never kept them away. Even when he had to be cared for at the hospice and he couldn’t walk, talk, and slept all the time, we all visited him every day.
When he died, I couldn’t tell them straight away. After the funeral we stayed at my parents’ house. On Father’s Day I took them to the cemetery to visit Michael’s grave. We let a balloon go and I said, “the angels came and took daddy away and he’s now a star in the sky.”
The girls still don’t quite understand what has happened to their daddy. Bella’s starting to get there; she has the smallest memory of her dad, one being that he’d always blow raspberries instead of kisses. Evie unfortunately has no memory of her dad but always talks about him. It’s difficult when we’re out and she sees other children with their daddies, or we see a man in uniform. Bella often asks, “why can’t he come back”.
Both of them have memory boxes full of treasures and photos and I’ll share my memories of him with them and tell them all of the silly things he used to do and what he liked to eat and not eat. Some of the girls’ traits are like their dad’s so I will share that with them.
A friend of mine suggested that I contact Scotty’s Little Soldiers initially. The charity has shown us love, provided support, and most importantly ensured that we’re not on our own. It has made me and the girls happy on days that are sad.
We went to Alton Towers with Scotty’s and the kids loved it. It’s wonderful to see them smile and be happy, especially Bella as she thinks about her dad a lot. Trips out like that show you that you can have fun and even though you feel sad inside, you’re always holding that someone special close in your heart, whilst making new, happy memories.
Scotty’s means the absolute world to us and I can’t imagine life without them. The support we have is fantastic, the team are always there to take my call when I need to talk or cry and through them the girls have made lifelong friends who know exactly what they are feeling and going through.