Lettie cried just once before developing severe respiratory distress. Photo / Supplied
Christmas is often envisioned as a magical time, brimming with the warmth of family gatherings, joyful celebrations and the sound of laughter.
Yet, for some, the excitement of the Christmas season can take a stark turn.
While many families wake up on Christmas morning with excitement and anticipation for the day that lies ahead, a parent with a child confined to a hospital bed may find themselves grappling with a profound sense of loneliness instead.
This year, hundreds of parents throughout Canterbury will spend Christmas in hospital with their child.
What should be a joyful day spent with loved ones can quickly become overwhelming and isolating.
It’s exactly this isolation that Christchurch charity One Mother to Another exists to soften.
Every year, it delivers more than 7000 care packages to parents and caregivers at 21 South Island hospital wards, offering practical comfort and emotional support during what can be some of the hardest days of their lives.
At Christmas, the charity puts together a further 350 Christmas care packages – made extra-special for every parent facing those long, heartbreaking days of the festive season.
Apart from comfort items and nourishing treats, Christmas packages include things such as home-made Christmas decorations, festive snacks, earrings, merino beanies and eye masks.
One Mother to Another chief executive Joy Reid said families weren’t asking for extravagance.
“What they need most is connection – a moment of warmth on one of the hardest days of their year. A reminder that they’re not walking this alone," Reid said.
“We just recognise that while the rest of the country is celebrating Christmas, there are hundreds of families who are at their child’s hospital bedside.
“And they are feeling alone, vulnerable, you know, their Christmas plans have been messed up.
“But also, a lot of parents in that space, they’re stressed enough as it is; but also, a lot of families are split over Christmas because of this scenario.
“You’ve got a newborn perhaps in the neonatal unit and a toddler at home, and the two of them can’t be together on Christmas Day.
“And that is just a really difficult decision for a parent to make. Do they spend the day with their child in an incubator, or do they spend the day with their child at home?
“Christmas is magical, but for them it’s just anything but.
“Our Christmas care packages are given to the parent on Christmas morning who is at their child’s hospital bedside and they just tell them that they’re seen, they’re spoiled, they’re valued, and that they’ve got this.
“The heart behind it is really just to kind of share that Christmas spirit on Christmas morning in a place that will not feel like Christmas.”
But what makes the difference isn’t only what’s inside the bags, but what they represent.
In the bags, which contain other essentials a parent experiencing a hospital stay with a sick child may need, is a handwritten note from someone who has travelled the same journey
But the note is more than just words on a page, it’s a moment of being seen – a reminder that someone cares.
For Holly Benson, that note arrived at the moment she needed it most.
When Benson went into the hospital at 33 weeks pregnant in December 2021, she thought she was there for monitoring.
However, by the end of the day, she would undergo an emergency caesarean, her baby would be fighting to breathe, and she would be thrust into the overwhelming and unfamiliar world of neonatal intensive care.
Benson had already endured a rough pregnancy, but nothing could have prepared her for what happened next.
“I went into spontaneous labour, which was dangerous because I had placenta previa. It was panic stations. They rushed me into theatre and Lettie was delivered a couple of hours later.”
Lettie cried just once before developing severe respiratory distress. She was intubated and taken immediately to the neonatal ICU.
“I was still in surgery when my husband texted me to say she’d been put on a ventilator,” Benson said.
“You feel like you’ve failed before you’ve even begun. Not being with her for those decisions … that feeling stays with you.”
It was the beginning of six long, emotionally brutal weeks in the NICU – and a journey that would reshape Benson’s understanding of motherhood, resilience and compassion.
When Benson was finally well enough to be wheeled to the NICU that night, the nurse at the door prepared her for what she was about to see.
“She explained the machines, the sounds … but nothing prepares you.
“You walk in and your whole world narrows down to your tiny baby in that incubator,” Benson said.
Despite the noise of the machines and the activity throughout the hospital, Benson said she felt profoundly alone.
“You can be in a room full of people and still feel completely alone,” she said.
“It’s terrifying. Overstimulating. And you’re trying to hold yourself together while your heart is breaking in a hundred ways.”
But on day two, a nurse placed a small gift bag beside her.
“She said, ‘This is for you’. I asked who it was from and she told me about One Mother to Another.”
Inside was a handwritten note.
“I opened it and just burst into tears,” Benson said.
“You could tell instantly it was written by someone who knew. Someone who had felt what I was feeling.
“For the first time I thought, ‘This is how I feel. I get it. And someone else gets it too’.”
That care package – a few comfort items and a message of solidarity – “was the best thing to receive on a very dark day”, Benson said.
“That will always be one of the greatest Christmas gifts I’ve ever had,” she said.
Today, Lettie is a thriving little girl with an ongoing heart condition under specialist care.
Holly says the emotional imprint of the NICU never fully fades.
“You carry it forever. The intensity of it eases, but the experience stays with you.”
She still has the handwritten note from her first pack – and treasures it.
And the tiny hand-knitted heart from one of her OMTA packages?
“It goes on my Christmas tree every year,” she said.
“It symbolises a time that was incredibly difficult, but we went through it – and came out the other side. Every year when I hang it on the tree, it reminds me how far we’ve come.”
Joy Reid shared advice for those wanting to support a loved one like Benson who’s going through a similar experience this Christmas.
“Unfortunately, until you experience having a sick child, it’s something that’s really difficult to understand and it’s a club no one wants to be a part of,” Reid said.
“But once you have experienced that, you have an empathy that is just, it’s like, I guess, a uniting experience.
“Send text messages of support saying you’re thinking of someone – but never expect a reply.
“Never ask, ‘How can I help?’ because that puts the onus on someone else to think about it.
“Why don’t you send a text message saying, ‘I can do this, this, this, or this. Choose one’.”
“Make a meal, a healthy snack, do their washing, send them a message,
“But expect nothing in return.
“Just standing alongside them and knowing that someone will walk that journey with you with no strings attached is one of the most special things you can do.
“Do not let someone flounder on their own.”
Jazlyn Whales is a multimedia journalist based in the Christchurch newsroom.