Jasper Bryan Cook
Our Story
We lost our darling Jasper on 21st January 2022, suddenly and unexpectedly, just 5 weeks before his 9th birthday. Jasper was a kind, thoughtful and fun-loving little boy with no apparent health issues.
He had tested positive for Covid-19 just 3 days before he passed and had seen an Out of Hours GP at 9pm the night before and no issues had been raised at the time. We found him in Cardiac Arrest early on Friday morning and despite our best efforts we were unable to save him.
Our beautiful boy was gone.
He left behind us, his Mum & Dad, his younger sister Lily and our Labrador Loki. Our world, from that point onwards, has forever changed and the huge Jasper shaped hole will never be filled.
Lily misses her big brother desperately and we miss the sounds of normal family life. The noise & busyness that we all complain about, the laughter & fun, the silly bickering, even the amount of washing! We would trade it all in a millisecond just to go back to how things were before that dreadful day.
So, what can we tell you to give you a sense of our wonderful son? Jasper’s great passion in life was Lego, and he was really punching above his weight in terms of model complexity, and he would spend hours building all sorts.
He loved school and absolutely adored going there. He was very popular with everyone, and his schoolmates said that he had the cheekiest smile which lit up the room and cheered them up no matter how they were feeling. They also described how he used to make up jokes which none of them understood until he explained them and then weren’t funny after all!
Jasper was fascinated by space and his bedroom at home was all on a space theme. He chose the darkest blue to decorate, much to Mummy’s disapproval, but once decorated and filled with his things, it was just the way he wanted.
Lily used to sneak into his bedroom at night sometimes, when she should have been asleep; and he would read her facts about space or jokes from one of his joke books. We could often hear them laughing and giggling to each other from downstairs and resented telling them it was ‘way past your bedtimes’.
Jasper helped with doing lots of jobs at home. He helped to decorate the lounge and Lily’s bedroom, as well as helping to do the decking. Jasper loved the garden; his favourite job was helping to mow the lawn. He always loved helping us choose the Christmas tree and was even big enough to help put up the Christmas lights on the house.
A big part of family life was Sunday afternoons watching the Grand Prix accompanied by pizza. Jasper loved F1, & Lewis Hamilton was his favourite driver.
Jasper started in Beavers in 2021 progressing up to Cubs shortly after. He absolutely adored being part of this & a highlight was attending his first Cubs Camp over Bonfire Weekend. He felt like such a grown up!
He had also started to enjoy horse riding. This interest started when he went with Lily for her first riding lesson for her 6th birthday. Staying with an animal theme. Jasper absolutely loved our Labrador Loki, who we got in 2019 as a puppy, loving taking him for walks, and snuggling with a blanket in the lounge.
Our regular holiday location was Center Parcs & we often went near Christmas, when Jasper would love meeting Santa, and watching the fireworks over the lake. We would also regularly visit Nanna & Gran’pa’s timeshare in the lake district, Loving the steam train, boat trips and swimming sessions. Jasper was initially cautious around water; however, he became a lot more confident when they both started swimming lessons and was well known for his ‘bombs’ at the end of their lessons.
Nanna & Gran’pa were a huge feature of Jaspers life as they provide wrap around childcare for the family. The one area of influence that Gran’pa had on Jasper was football, with them both being big fans of Watford FC. Jaspers Watford top was always his first choice.
On New Year’s Eve 2021 he was allowed to stay up to see the New Year in, for the first time. Little did we know it would be his last.
We are slowly coming to the realisation that we will never feel whole again as there will always now be a part of us that is missing. Having to learn how to live without one of your children is a lesson we never wanted to learn. Our beautiful family has been devastated and this will forever have a lasting impact on us all.
We are desperate to to keep Jasper’s memory alive and that is why we have set up a Memorial Fund within CRY. All the money we raise will be used to fund Screening Days and support research, as we want to help save young people. No parents should have to go through the devastating loss of their child. If we can prevent even one family going through the excruciating heartbreak, we have had to endure then we will feel we have done some good in a world that sometimes feels broken.
