Hi everybody this is Chris and I’m AnaBella’s dad, thank you for visiting my campaign and I’d like to thank all those people that have already donated, all those people that have already sponsored me and all those people that are going to be donating in the near future.
And if you visiting and you don’t have the money to donate at the moment I want to give you a big thanks as well: this campaign is about awareness so just visiting and reading or listening to what I’m getting up to, sharing on social media that’s a great help as well so i want to thank you to you guys as well.
What are we doing here? Why are we doing it? Where’s the money going to ? Well it’s all about my daughter: AnaBella Nina Bale Burgos who was born on the 21st April 2018. She came out small, she came out early but she was a little fighter and she was beautiful, a beautiful baby girl. But 28 days later after fighting, fighting strong for those 28 days she succumbed and unfortunately she passed over.
So this is all about her, her life and what we went through as a family, what I went through as a man. I am doing this to help some organisations that helped us out during that time and also to bring some awareness to to what we went through as a family and to get people talking. Get people talking about baby loss. Baby loss is one of those subjects that remains taboo in many walks of life, so I’m going to talk about it.
I’m going on a 500 miles in 28-day walk called the Camino de Santiago. Starting in France, the Camino de Frances is the exact route, in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and crosses over the Pyrenees walking along the northern Coast of Spain and ending in Santiago de Compostela.
It’s going to be 28 days in 500 miles: selfishly i’m doing it for myself, to sort my own head out during this time. But I’m also going to take this time to talk about my grief through vlogs and through blog posts in the hope that maybe this may help someone else out who’s going through a situation.
I think if you’ve got a story you’ve got a duty to share it. We’re all going through stuff and we can help each other by talking about it, by sharing our story. I think sharing is a massive thing so that’s what I’m going to do, share my story put my grief out there in the hope that my journey may help somebody else.
On my journey I’m also going to raise some money to give back to some organisations that helped us out: Cots for Tots who provided us with accommodation during AnaBella’s life and Cruse Bereavement Care who provided counselling services for us after AnaBella died.
I’m also starting a podcast called “A Father’s Grief” which is an opportunity for me to share my story but also talking to other men that have gone through this so they can share their stories. The hope is that we’re going to start the discussion about men’s mental health. Something that is often overlooked. As mentioned baby loss is taboo, men’s mental health is taboo and this podcast is going to hopefully break some of that taboo and get people talking.
That’s what it’s all about, it’s about awareness. If you’ve read or heard this and if you want to share my campaign please go ahead and share it. The more people that this message can get to, the better, and I want to say thanks again for visiting. God bless and I’ll be speaking to you very soon.