Mother passes suddenly leaving son orphaned

Myself (Luca Dennison), my sister (Abbigail Bonner) and brother (Bradley Smith) are trying to raise funds towards the burial of our mother, Angela Smith.

Mum tragically passed on 22nd of June 2023, aged 53 years old. Mum is survived by her son Bradley Smith who is 13 years old currently.

Due to our circumstances, we do not have the funds to cover the cost of a basic funeral and our mother could not get life insurance or money to cover those costs.

My sister Abbigail Bonner is going to take on the guardianship of my brother Bradley and she also has a 12-year-old autistic son, Jamie. Tragically my younger brother is now left without our Mother or his Father. But thankfully my older sister has taken him in as her own. She is trying to maintain a level of normality for him for example his sporting activities that he would usually attend.

Abbigail is now also having to seek a larger property to accomodate Bradley's needs and to make sure her own son's needs are met too.

The costs are going to be in the region of £7,000 upwards, and we are hoping that this platform may help to raise much needed funds to make that achievable. We are hoping to raise funds in the region of £3,000 to make this possible.

Our mother’s story:

Angela Smith was a strong, quick witted, feisty, caring, loving mother to four, Clare, Abbi, Luca, and Bradley. Her life was a road of hardships, starting out with her taking her own mothers place within the household chores from the young age of 6, due to her mother committing suicide when Angela was only 3. Her father was a joiner, Angie would wash and prepare his clothes for the next day, clean the house, do the dishes, anything to help her hardworking father.

However, in her later life she was diagnosed with Mesothelioma age 50. This being due to her inhaling the asbestos particles on her father’s clothes she would wash and prepare, lying dormant within her body for years and activating inside her lungs.

Our mother began to feel heaviness and pain in her lungs, struggling to move and coughing up fluid and blood. After multiple sets of antibiotics and visits to the hospital, her lungs were drained of 3 Litres of fluid and cancer cells were found within her lung and were shown to be growing at a rapid pace.

We were told chemotherapy would give Mum 6 months.

After this devastating news, months passed, and the doctors said she didn’t have mesothelioma anymore. Angela was given multiple scans, doctor visits, pain relief, and it continued to show she was in great health despite her continuing to cough blood, struggle to move, get about the community and find great difficulty in moving up the stairs.

Much to our dismay, Mum began to decline further through the next couple years. In her last few weeks, the same pattern began to reveal the same way it did in the beginning, yet this time it was worse. Now she could no longer move up the stairs, wash herself or raise the phone to her ear to talk to her daughters.

She became delirious, unable to dress herself into fresh clothing and began not making sense when she spoke. Coughing up more blood, she made multiple trips to the hospital in this state, in which she was told it was a lung infection and her gallbladder.

She was given multiple antibiotics, yet nothing helped. Later, Mum suffered a heart attack. She was resuscitated after 15 minutes. Her body was kept alive by machines, her organs were failing, and doctors told us she had previously experienced a silent heart attack before entering the hospital.

In her final moments, Mum was surrounded by her loved ones.

Angela was a loving woman, feeding those that could not feed themselves, listening to those that others wouldn’t ‘t listens to. She held out her hands for everyone, offering them a seat and a cup of tea any time they needed within her home.

Our hearts are broken with our Mum's sudden death, we have to deal with the shock and the aftermath regarding the care of our brother Bradley.

We are asking for your help in any shape or form if that being 50p or a £1 anything would help. Even a share is greatly appreciated, we would be so grateful. We need all the help we can get.

Thank you so much for talking the time to read our mother’s story.