Daddy's tribute (page 1)

It's comforting to see so many of our friends and relatives here to support us and to say farewell to our darling little girl.

It's an unimaginably painful situation to have to bury our daughter who had become the centre of our lives, she was only here for 631 days but she brought us such joy and happiness that her sudden loss is all the more unbearable.

Because she was here for such a short time it was important for us to complement this service with something that would give you at least a glimpse of what a special little girl she was. A few words can’t begin to do her justice but hopefully the music and pictures can. We spent many painful hours trying to condense hundreds of photos, each with a special memory, down to the handful that we could show here. Both pieces of music are ones that we actually sang to her, the first piece captures the intensity of emotion that we had being around her and the second for how thankful we are for everything that she brought into our lives.

Our beautiful daughter Indya Violet was born on 28th July 2006 at Crowborough birthing centre, weighing 7lb 11oz.

We couldn't believe that we had finally been blessed with such a gorgeous little girl; when she first looked up at us the intense love that we felt was overwhelming. We had imagined what she would be like throughout Siân's pregnancy, but she turned out to be not just everything that we had imagined but so much more. We were very nervous parents and terrified of doing something wrong but she took our fumblings in her stride and made everything as easy as possible for us.

At every stage of her development we convinced ourselves that this was the best time, but each brought more joy than the previous, from the first smile to holding her head up unaided, to weaning, to crawling, to standing, walking, running and dancing, and most recently speaking and properly expressing herself.

Indya had a wonderful sense of fun and found everything funny; hiding in wardrobes and peeking out with a cheeky grin; running around to the other side of the car giggling when we were trying to go out; teasing Tommy our dog and laughing when he growled; insisting on piggy back rides - still geeing me up even when I was completely exhausted; putting buckets or pairs of knickers over her head just because it made mummy laugh; and she had the most wonderful belly laugh herself at tickle time.