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Charlie’s Angels Foundation: the WA mum offering support and understanding to bereaved families

Taking pride of place on the fridge in the Binnington family’s Scaborough home is a charming stick figure drawing of their family of five. Mum Kelly is there, and Dad Tyler (who has grounds to object to the size of his ears). The artist herself, five-year-old Ella, is depicted along with her two siblings: Charlie, who is floating in the sky, and baby Rosie, who is inexplicably the same size as her parents. There is no photographic equivalent of that picture because Rosie wasn’t born when Charlie passed away at just four months old from heart issues caused by the rare genetic condition Barth syndrome. Like many bereaved parents, Kelly and Tyler refer to their two daughters as their “living children” in an acknowledgement that they have three children, even if one is no longer physically by their side. But Charlie is forever part of the Binnington family and when Kelly and Tyler look back at their son’s short life, they see plenty of joy amid the sadness. Interspersed between the hospital stays and the barrage of tests Charlie’s tiny body endured, the worry and the not knowing, then the heart-wrenching realisation that their little boy was not going to get better, there are moments for which they are forever grateful. They are thankful they got to witness Charlie’s smile, which was so dazzling the memory of it continues to light up their eyes two years after his death. And that Ella got to bond with her brother. They fondly recall how their elderly cocker spaniel, Sherlock, assigned himself Charlie’s protector, seemingly aware the baby needed to be treated with the utmost care as he lay with his soft golden head on the child’s chest. “Charlie was such a happy boy and he was just starting to smile and giggle before he died,” Kelly says. “He loved Ella and would watch mesmerised as she danced around.” “And he liked sloths,” Tyler adds, pointing to Charlie’s favourite plush toy that now takes pride of place on a shelving unit in their lounge room. “He hated being poked and prodded in hospital but he loved the attention and the nurses,” Kelly continues. “He had his favourite nurses,” Tyler says. “They would swap shifts to be on with him.” “And they would argue about who got to look after him,” Kelly adds, turning to smile at her husband. The Binningtons hold their memories close, grateful that Charlie lived and was loved, even if letting him go was the worst pain they have ever had to endure. It was deep in the depths of that pain, while grappling with the unbearable weight of being a mother mourning a child, that Kelly decided the only way out was through connection. She knew there were other parents like her and Tyler dealing with this most unimaginable of losses. She had seen them sitting hollow-eyed and worn out in the corridors of Perth’s Children Hospital. For Kelly, finding those people was her way of feeling less alone, of making some sense of her loss and finding a light in the darkness. And so, in honour of her little boy, she launched Charlie’s Angels Foundation in March 2024, a little over a year after Charlie died on January 21, 2023. It’s a sunny morning and a steady stream of customers file into Innaloo’s Lot Six Zero cafe for their daily caffeine hit. There’s the usual cross-section of business types, tradies, lycra-clad ladies from the gym across the road and young mums wrangling spirited toddlers and bulky strollers. It’s busy and bustling as morning greetings ring out over laughter and chairs scrape across the concrete floors. There is no sign that the night before, when the cafe was closed for business, a different group of people filled the space. Kelly’s family own and operate Lot Six Zero and it is one of the places where she hosts regular get-togethers for bereaved families who have found her through Charlie’s Angels Foundation. On this night, Kelly has filled the space with scented candles, providing a soft welcoming glow, a gentle light in the darkness. She greets every person with a warm hug as the group gathers to offer each other solace that comes only through understanding. The quiet confines of the cafe provides a safe space where they are able to talk freely about the children they can no longer hold in their arms, but who they continue to hold in their hearts. Kelly’s mum, Lindsey, is in attendance, as is Tyler. Kelly explains that Charlie’s Angels Foundation is for everyone. She wants bereaved dads and grandparents, aunts and uncles to come along. Support doesn’t always stretch that far, she says, but she is well aware she is not the only member of her family missing Charlie. “When I started Charlie’s Angels Foundation, I wanted to offer support for the whole family. I felt there was a need for something that was inclusive of extended family — the grandparents and the aunties and uncles,” she says. “Grief has such a ripple effect. And grandparents often deal with double the grief — they have lost a grandchild, and then they’ve got the pain of watching their adult child go through a life-changing loss.” The speaker Kelly has engaged on this night is a psychologist who talks about EMDR, a form of therapy that is said to help reduce the trauma attached to memories. As the evening goes on some of the women share aspects of their stories. Tears begin to fall as tissues and encouraging smiles are silently passed around. One mother, Samantha, seems to sum up what everyone else is feeling when she confesses, “but I don’t want to let go of the pain — it’s all I have left”. The group nod knowingly, they all feel the same. Four weeks after Charlie’s death, Kelly found out she was pregnant with her third child. “The plan was if we were to have another baby we would have gone down the IVF route because I am a carrier of Barth syndrome and we wanted to cancel out the genetic risks, but obviously that didn’t happen,” she says. “I was pregnant when Charlie died. Charlie and Rosie would have only been 13 months apart. “It was a very long and stressful 10 weeks waiting to find out the gender and that she was going to be OK.” But Kelly continued to struggle with grief and anxiety for the duration of her pregnancy. The trauma of returning to the hospital environment where Charlie had spent so much of his short life, and the fear her unborn child might also suffer health issues, weighed heavily on her. “It wasn’t until Rosie was born that I felt I could breathe,” she says. “The pregnancy was a blur. I had nine months of growing another baby but I had just lost my son. So I was trying to navigate the grief but also my biggest concern was not putting that stress onto the baby.” She tried different forms of therapy but struggled to find the right fit. “I wasn’t at a stage where I could keep going in and rehashing it all the time,” she says. “I wasn’t coming out feeling any better. Talking about it wasn’t the support I was seeking. “And I wasn’t trying to get rid of my grief,” she says, echoing Samantha’s sentiments. “I am trying to learn how to live alongside it. The grief is all I have got left of Charlie and if it is taken away I don’t have anything. “I remember going to a group therapy session and I found it really confronting. I came away from that, feeling more anxious and upset than I did when I went in and that’s when I came home and said, ‘I am going to do something myself’. So, I started Charlie’s Angels for quite selfish reasons, in the hope of connecting with someone in a similar situation to me.” While most new mums are stressed and frazzled from lack of sleep, Kelly’s emotions were heightened by the trauma she was still working through. “My anxiety would go through the roof when Rosie would cry and my brain would go back to those moments with Charlie. The room would change and the baby crying would be Charlie. In reality it was just Rosie crying because she was a four-week-old baby but in my head it would be so much worse,” she says. “I was so desperate not to feel alone and by no means was I alone but I still felt isolated.” After connecting with Samantha, who also had a baby after loss, Kelly started to realise how important it was to find people who understood how she was feeling. “Our stories weirdly intertwined and once I connected with her, it felt like a real safe space for me,” Kelly says. “I could say how stressed out I was and how tired I was, one, because of the grief and two, because I had a newborn baby.” For Kelly, the benefits of starting Charlie’s Angels Foundation have been numerous. “To be able to sit down with somebody and they just get it regardless of how their loss occurred, it’s just comforting,” she says. Working on the foundation is also her way of making space to be with Charlie. “Day to day I am busy with Ella and Rosie and don’t have time to just sit and be with Charlie,” she says. “So when I do work on the foundation, I feel like I am spending time with him.” But the biggest benefit has come from being able to bring families together and provide an in-built support network for children dealing with the loss of a sibling. “We’ve done a few family events where the parents come along with their living children and the kids have developed such a unique bond,” Kelly says. “We recently did a family day at a bowling alley and the kids were in their lanes bowling and talking about their siblings that live in the stars. Ella can’t go to school and talk about Charlie, and if she does, they don’t understand what she’s talking about. They can’t make sense of it. Whereas for these other kids that have also lost a sibling, it’s just such a beautiful conversation for them to have. And it makes them feel like they’re not alone, that they’re not the odd one out anymore. “The ages of these children vary and as they get older, their grief will change and they’ll start to understand that it’s not all rainbows, clouds and sparkly angel wings as they believe now. They’ll start to realise that it’s permanent and that it’s a horrible thing, so for them to have a community already there in front of them to talk to and feel safe with — it’s not a daunting therapist that you’ve got to go and talk to — they can just talk to each other. And I think that takes a huge weight off the parents as well knowing their children have got a community they can talk to who will understand.” Kelly has big plans for the foundation — she wants to grow the community, host more events and also offer financial assistance and support to families who have children in palliative care. She also stresses that her events are open to anyone dealing with the loss of a child or infant, including those who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth, and regardless of how long ago it was. “People have been in touch saying they lost their child six years ago and asking can they still come. You could have lost your child 20 years ago and you’re still always welcome,” she says. “Grief is a funny thing, sometimes it feels like a lot of time has gone by and other times it feels like it just happened yesterday. I imagine it will always feel a bit like that.” To contact Charlie’s Angels Foundation visit charliesangelsfoundation.com or via Facebook or Instagram.

The West Australian exclusiveCharlie’s Angels Foundation: the WA mum offering support and understanding to bereaved families

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Charlie’s Angels Foundation: the WA mum offering support and understanding to bereaved families