5 Years ago today... Our lives changed forever.

Five years ago today, we received the phone call that no parent ever expects to receive. A phone call from Oliver’s nursery that changed our lives forever.

Five years is such a difficult amount of time to comprehend because, in some ways, it feels like an entire lifetime has passed, yet there are moments when we can close our eyes and it feels like it happened yesterday. On 23 September 2021, what had started as a completely normal day became every parent's worst nightmare when we received a call telling us that something had happened to our beautiful little boy at nursery.

Nothing can ever prepare you for receiving a phone call like that. In a matter of seconds, everything else in life becomes completely meaningless and all you can think about is getting to your child. There is panic, confusion and fear, with your mind racing through every possible scenario while desperately trying to convince yourself that everything will somehow be okay. You don't expect to drop your baby off at nursery and later receive a phone call that will divide your entire life into a before and an after.

We could never have imagined what that phone call would mean or what the following days would bring. What followed were six days of pure hell. Six days of hospitals, machines, doctors, conversations that no parent should ever have to have, waiting for updates, clinging to hope and desperately wanting somebody to tell us that our little boy was going to be okay. Six days of sitting beside Oliver, holding him, talking to him and wishing with absolutely everything we had that we could somehow turn back time and change what had happened.

Those six days are something that will remain with us for the rest of our lives. When you are a parent, your instinct is to protect your child and make things better when something is wrong, but we were suddenly in a situation where we could do nothing except sit beside our little boy, love him and hope. Time seemed to stand still while at the same time moving far too quickly, and the world outside continued as normal while ours had completely stopped. Then, on 29 September 2021, just six days after receiving that phone call, we lost Oliver. He was just nine months old.

There are simply no words capable of properly describing what losing your child does to you or the hole that it leaves behind. There is the person you were before it happened and the person you somehow learn to become afterwards. Life continues because it has to, but it is never the same life again. There will always be somebody missing from our family, somebody who should be in our photographs, sitting around our table, celebrating birthdays and Christmases with us and growing up alongside us.

What makes that loss even more difficult to live with is knowing that Oliver did not receive the first aid that he deserved when he choked by professionals. That is something we have had to carry with us every single day since, because we will always believe that Oliver should still be here today. He deserved every possible chance when he needed help the most, and knowing that he did not receive that chance is something that can never be undone.

Meanwhile, those who failed Oliver continue to go about their daily lives, with some still working in other childcare settings.

Oliver should have been given the opportunity to grow up. We should have watched him take his first steps, listened to his first proper words, watched his personality develop, seen him start school, celebrated every birthday and Christmas and experienced all of those completely ordinary moments that, until something like this happens, you never imagine could be taken away from you. We should know what his favourite food would be, what would make him laugh now, what he would enjoy at school, what he would want to be when he grew up and the countless other little things that make someone who they are.

Instead, we are left wondering.

We have photographs, videos and precious memories of the nine months that we were lucky enough to have Oliver in our lives, but we also have an enormous space where he should be. Grief does not disappear because five years have passed. You simply learn how to carry it while continuing to live your life around it, and there will always be moments when the reality of what happened hits just as hard as it did in the beginning.

But amongst all of that pain, Oli lives on through The Oliver Steeper Foundation.

What began from the most unimaginable heartbreak has grown into something that carries Oliver's name, his face and his story into childcare settings across the country. Every LifeVac device that we provide, every conversation that we start about choking, every person who becomes more aware because they have heard Oliver's story, and every change that helps make children safer is part of the legacy of a little boy who was only here for nine months but has gone on to make an incredible difference.

We cannot change what happened to Oliver, and we cannot go back to that phone call five years ago. No number of devices provided, no amount of money raised and no milestone reached by the charity will ever fill the enormous hole that losing our son has left in our lives. We would exchange every achievement in a heartbeat simply to have him back with us.

What we can do, however, is make sure that something meaningful continues to happen in Oliver's name. We can continue telling his story, continue raising awareness and continue trying to give other children the chances that Oliver deserved. If something done in his name means another family never has to experience the phone call that we received five years ago, then that is a legacy worth continuing for as long as we possibly can.

Today, though, isn't really about numbers, milestones or achievements. Today is about Oli.

It is about remembering the beautiful little boy behind the charity's name and remembering why we started this journey in the first place. Before there was a Foundation, before there were fundraising events, LifeVac devices, campaigns or social media pages, there was simply our little boy, Oliver.

As we mark five years since that phone call, we also want to take the opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to every single person who has supported The Oliver Steeper Foundation and helped us keep Oliver's legacy alive.

Thank you to everyone who has donated, whether that donation was £1 or thousands of pounds. Thank you to everyone who has attended one of our events, bought a raffle ticket, organised a fundraiser, placed money into a collection pot, volunteered their time, shared one of our posts, spoken about Oliver or simply followed our journey and supported what we are trying to achieve. Every contribution, every share and every act of support has played a part in allowing us to continue helping others in Oliver's name, and we will never take that support for granted.

There is another thank you that is equally important, and that is to the people who have supported us personally over the last five years. Behind the Foundation, behind the events, behind the fundraising and behind everything people see online, we are still simply Oliver's mum and dad trying to navigate a life that looks completely different from the one we thought we were going to have.

There have been people who have stood beside us through some incredibly dark days, people who have listened when there were no words that could possibly make things better, people who have checked in when they knew a difficult date was approaching, people who have allowed us to talk about Oliver and, perhaps most importantly, people who have continued to say his name. You may never fully understand how much those seemingly small things have meant to us, but we will always be grateful for them.

Five years ago today, one phone call changed absolutely everything. The six days that followed were the worst six days of our lives, and on 29 September 2021 our world changed forever when we had to say goodbye to our beautiful nine-month-old boy.

We would give absolutely anything for our story to have been different. We would give anything to have Oliver here with us today, growing up and becoming the little person he should have had the opportunity to become.

But while we cannot rewrite what happened to him, we can continue writing what happens because of him.

We can continue telling Oliver's story, continue raising awareness, continue fighting for better preparedness and safer environments for children, and continue building something positive from the darkest period of our lives.

Most importantly, we can make sure that the little boy at the heart of everything we do is never forgotten.

Oliver Steeper. Our beautiful boy, forever nine months old, forever loved, forever missed and never, ever forgotten. 💙