I was so shocked and upset for Nicola as I knew that she had got Ted during a time when she needed a special friend to bring some light to her. I was immediately taken back to when we lost Duncan. His story is here for all to see and how he was the brightest light ever in a very dark time for me. I still miss him so very much and am thankful forever for his unconditional love and kindness - something that a lot of people in my life at that time failed to show me and he really was a lifeline. I am probably still here today thanks to him (and my husband)
The best thing to do when you are grieving I have found is to try and turn that grief into something positive. For me I have always ran, I have ran to raise money when we lost Duncan for Canine Partners and I ran the Great North Run in 2014 to raise money for the Miscarriage Association following the loss of our three babies. Nicola decided to design a pin and launched a Kickstarter campaign to be able to raise the funds to make a badge in tribute to Ted. The campaign was a success and Nicola made not only one but two badges featuring Ted. The one below is the one I have been wearing everyday as I love the sentiment of it and it gives me a little boost looking at it each day!
I also had become a little obsessed with Pins over the past few year or so. I blame the Lucky Dip Club for this as I had been getting some gorgeous pins each month with my subscription and due to the various pin related hashtags on Instagram had been adding to my collection and sporting them on my back pack, on my jacket's, even on my work lanyard to cheer me up. I was always seeking out pins featuring dogs but could never find one that I really liked. I had spoken to Nicola about it and she said we could collaborative to do something together. Given that I have zero drawing skills this was brilliant as she really is the talent behind the campaigh! I came up with an idea to ask Nicola to design a badge with Duncan on but the concept of the pin should focus self care, mental health awareness and the help that Pet's can bring to people in sad times. On my way home from California I was feeling a bit low after an amazing holiday and just before the plane took off from Georgia, Nicola sent me the first design of Duncan and our Black Dog Club Pin. I was totally blown away and couldn't wait then to start planning our campaign
If you are not familiar with Kickstarter, it is similar to crowd funding, and it basically is a way to raise the money to produce your creative idea, by people "pledging" to buy your product in advance. Our Kickstarter has featured a number of stretch goals, so we hope to create a number of pins, and give people some choice as to what pin they might like. However it doesn't matter what pin you choose everybody will get a postcard with some self care guidance on which you can keep or pass on to a friend who might need it.
Our campaign ends on Wednesday and we have been lucky enough to have enough pledges to be able to make our original pin, our two stretch goal pins - we are just short 42.00 of our latest stretch goal to get this pin made which is a very special pin featuring both Duncan and Ted- it would be amazing if we could get this one made as a little tribute to two very special pets
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| Our Black Dog Club Self Care Postcard |
Our campaign ends on Wednesday and we have been lucky enough to have enough pledges to be able to make our original pin, our two stretch goal pins - we are just short 42.00 of our latest stretch goal to get this pin made which is a very special pin featuring both Duncan and Ted- it would be amazing if we could get this one made as a little tribute to two very special pets
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