Kayleigh's Wee Stars founder Anna on why grief never goes away

Anna Cordiner, the founder of Kayleigh’s Wee Stars, gets immense happiness whenever her charity is able to help someone.

But it also brings back memories of her daughter Kayleigh, who died from a brain tumour aged just two and for whom the charity is named.

More than a decade on from Kayleigh’s death, those moments remain bittersweet.

“It’s strange, because you get a feeling of sadness,” Anna says. “But it’s more like a sadness for them, while proud that Kayleigh’s managed to help them.”

What those moments also do, though, is remind Anna why she started the charity in the first place.

It began in late-2011, when Kayleigh, who had not long turned one, started falling over a lot and being sick.

Doctors initially told Anna and husband Jonathan it was an ear infection. But Kayleigh didn’t improve and was eventually diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer.

Kayleigh in 2012, after she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Image: Colin Rennie/DC Thomson

She was given about 12 months to live, and, to make the most of them, Anna and Jonathan put their jobs as primary school teachers on hold.

Kayleigh lived for just six of those months. But Anna says the time she and Jonathan spent with their daughter was so fulfilled, so happy that they wanted others caught in the same situation have them too.

Helping families make lasting memories with loved ones

Since Kayleigh’s Wee Stars, or KWS as it is also known, was founded in 2012, it has raised more than £1million to provide grants to the families of children diagnosed with terminal illnesses.

In that time, the charity has allowed countless families across the north-east the freedom to made lasting memories in however long they have left to make them.

Anna and Jonathan with Kayleigh. Image: Colin Rennie/DC Thomson

What the families spend the grants on is entirely up to them – Anna says one of the fundamentals of KWS is to have no strings attached.

“It’s basically just to make sure families don’t have to think about finances,” she says. “We want to make that as easy as possible.”

Anna moves into Kayleigh’s Wee Stars hotseat

Another constant at KWS has been Anna and Jonathan, who live in Oldmeldrum, letting others run the charity while they continued as teachers across Aberdeenshire.

In August, however, that changed when Anna left her position as a complex needs teacher at Ellon Primary to take over as KWS’s full-time manager.

Anna took over as manager at KWS in August. Image: Kath Flannery/DC Thomson

Anna always wanted to be more involved in the charity but was so passionate about her job that it was tough to leave.

Even after making the decision, leaving her class behind was, she says, “incredibly difficult.”

But, she adds: “Within two days of being in this job, I knew I’d done exactly the right thing.”

Marking the ‘Kayleigh Days’ as a family

One of her first tasks was organising KWS’s annual charity cycle in Newmachar last Saturday (October 5) with 202 participants raising more than £6,000.

These big events – KWS also holds an annual 10k run – are important not just for the money they bring in, they serve as important milestones for the Cordiners.

“They’re our Kayleigh Days,” explains Anna, who in 2013 gave birth to her second daughter Charlotte, followed a few years later by a third, Emma. “They are where we’re just allowed to completely think about her and what she’s brought.”

The Cordiners, from left to right, Charlotte. Anna, Jonathan and Emma. Image: Kath Flannery/DC Thomson

Christmas Day is also a Kayleigh Day – the family attends the special candle service at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for those who have lost a child.

And then there is Kayleigh’s birthday, when Anna and Jonathan cook her favourite – spaghetti bolognaise.

All of these allow Charlotte and Emma to feel close to the older sister they never knew.

The family talk about Kayleigh all the time, and on dark evenings Emma will go outside to look for the first star in the sky, telling everyone it’s her sister.

The family talk about Kayleigh all the time. Image: Kath Flannery/DC Thomson

A grief that changes over time

And while the pain of losing Kayleigh never gets easier for Anna, the feelings do change over time.

“The grief is always there,” she says. “But it’s now surrounded by so many other things.”

Still, there are days when grief catches Anna unawares.

Like the time a couple of years ago, on the last day of the school term when she saw the P7s leaving class for the last time and realised it would have been Kayleigh’s class.

“You still get caught out by little things like that,” she says. “And we will, I think, for a long time.”