Just 12 weeks after giving birth to her eighth child, 27-year old Chloe Green’s husband James died in his sleep.
“It was so sudden and so shocking,” she told The Sun. “To think James won't be here to see the large family he wanted so much grow up breaks my heart.”
James died just 12 weeks after the couple welcomed baby Elijah. To Chloe’s horror, he sat up in bed and stopped breathing due to hypertensive heart disease.
And despite her grief, the mum says she has to keep her strength for the sake of her beautiful children: Leo, 9, Levi, 6, Oliver, 5, Megan, 4, Miley, 3, Lacey, 2, Lexi, 20 months and Elijah, 11 months.
“I wanted to scream and cry but knew I needed to keep calm,” she remembers. “I looked at those eight little faces all depending on me and I knew I had to do this for them and for James.”
Chloe and James had their first child Leo when she was 17, and according to the mum, James was the broody one in the house, not her.
“All my friends had to talk their partners into having babies, but in our house, it was the other way around,” she says. “He would wink at me and smile and say, ‘Just one more Clo’.”
And according to Chloe, James was an amazing dad to their brood.
“He'd do the school run, then go to work at the café before picking the kids up,” she says. “Then he'd sit and play games and read until bedtime. He had so much energy.”
Now the grieving mum is pouring all her strength into looking after her kids.
“In my darkest moments I wondered how on earth I would do this without James, I felt lost," she says. “But I had to do it. I love my brood so much I know I can do a great job for them in my husband's honour.”
Chloe has now set up a fund to raise money to create a garden for her kids.
“I am trying to raise money so that my children can have a safe but fun garden to play in,” she says. “We live in a detached bungalow and no other children around us really. And the garden is just nowhere near fit for them to play in, and with having three non-walkers I would love for them to have a garden they can actually go out in. I think they all really deserve this too.”
If you would like to donate, visit Chloe’s fundraising page here.
