On May 16 last year, eight-year-old Charlie Morettes collapsed and died from sudden cardiac death while playing rounders at his school in Sutton-at-Hone. One year on from the tragedy, his mother and stepfather pay tribute to him.
Nothing prepares you for the loss of your child. On May 16 last year, Charlie bounced out of the door and off to school without a sign anything was wrong, excited to be playing rounders that day.
Little did we know the next time we would see our precious son he would be dying.
The one thing we are thankful for is we were all together that morning and had a lovely time and told him we loved him, as we did every morning.
God must have been looking for a very special angel the day he took Charlie – no ordinary angel, a perfect, a precious angel, to bring fun and laughter into heaven.
Maybe he was looking for a dancer to entertain everyone, maybe someone to sit by the gates and ask new angels as many questions as possible as they enter in, or maybe He was looking for the biggest, brightest sunbeam he could find.
From the day he was born, Charlie brought love, laughter and sunshine into the lives of us all.
His twinkling eyes and beautiful smile were just two of the things which made him so special.
Charlie needed to know as much detail as possible about people, sometimes asking the most bizarre questions.
Sometimes we didn’t even know the answer to his questions and we were left wondering ourselves why that had happened or how it worked.
Charlie had an amazing love for life and people, and he taught many people not to judge a book by its cover, because there is good in everybody somewhere – with some people you just have to work a little harder to find it.
Friendship was a special gift he brought to people. He never complained about going to school as his friends were there are to him that was a good thing.
He loved his friends so much and they loved him back.
Entertaining people was Charlie’s main focus, be it dancing, telling jokes or doing tricks – as long as it brought a smile to people’s faces, it made him happy.
He always danced to the sound of music, whatever it was – he loved nothing more than a party or a disco.
We miss his laughter, tricks and jokes. He brightened the darkest of days.
Charlie, our darling precious angel, everybody will go on remembering a special something about you.
We will remember something you did or said to us, and this will always bring a smile to our faces.
We are all so blessed to have had you in our lives, even thought it was only for eight years.
If we had one wish it would be to bring you back, but that’s not going to happen – heaven would never let you go now it is having such a fantastic time with you.
We love you so much, tiger.
Allison and Tony Spalding
