On the 18th April 2008 an angel returned to heaven after 631 days on earth.

When I became pregnant with Indya, I thought I would explode with happiness. I had dreamt of being a mum for so long, but I had no idea – when Indya arrived, I discovered that being a mum was a million times better than anything I had dreamt of.

When she first looked up at me the intense love I felt was overwhelming. I thought this was the happiest day of my life – but there was so much more to come. The first smile, the first crawl, the first steps, which soon turned into running and dancing, the first time she kissed me, the first time she said “mummy” (well, “moomi”) – every day was the happiest day of my life. My beautiful angel, with her big blue eyes and massive grin, impossible as it seemed, grew more and more beautiful each day. She had a brilliant sense of humour – she soon worked out that putting things on her head, be it a bucket, a pair of knickers or a tea towel, would make me laugh, so did it all the more.

From the moment she woke up to the time she went to bed, she was always on the move and so happy – everyone commented on how she was always smiling.

Even in the hospital, hours before the operation which was going to end so tragically, she entertained junior doctors in her cot, running up and down and grinning, making them all laugh. She was so alive!

Indya’s death was very sudden – during an endoscopy , to discover why she was not recovering from croup, a tracheostomy was performed, which went tragically wrong. At this time we are still awaiting the findings from an inquest. Indya fought for many hours, and survived a traumatic journey to St Thomas’ PICU – whose doctors and nurses I cannot thank enough for their efforts to save her. Right to the end she was the perfect daughter – she knew I could never choose to let her go, so she made the choice for me, and died in my arms.

People have said that this is the worst thing that can ever happen – but I know that the worst thing would have been to have never had Indya in our lives at all. She taught us how to really live. We would not be grieving so intensely if we had not experienced such intense love.

So thank you Indya for the most wonderful 21 months imaginable!