Such a moving story

12 September 2019

This is the personal account of a brave, young widow, Zoe Jones, who decided to raise money for SSAFA The Armed Forces Charity in gratitude for the help and support she received from them after the tragic, early death of her husband.

These are her own words…..

“I decided to set up a Facebook birthday fundraiser this year and have SSAFA as my charitable cause. I’ve not ever done this type of thing before, but I wanted to give something back to the organisation that helped me and to let other people know about SSAFA.
Last year I went through the most traumatic time of my life. My husband suddenly passed away, it was awful.

Simon was generally a fit and healthy man, he served for nearly 10 years with the Royal Corps of Signals and was a physical training instructor, (PTI), completing two tours of Iraq.
Simon and I met on March 15th 2014, and from our first date we just clicked, it was like we had known each other forever.

Simon told me of his time in the Forces and would always have that glint in his eye. He always said it was some of the best & worst times of his life, but I loved hearing his stories and looking at his photos of his time in Iraq.
Like many who return from war, Simon did suffer. He had flashbacks and anxiety and although he would never admit it, let alone seek professional help, he did have PTSD.

Simon would often have nightmares, or there would be trigger moments, which deeply troubled him.

Simon told me that when he first left the Army he would self-medicate and try to control his emotions with alcohol, but with the support of his friends he generally managed to get over the worst.

His close friends would often say how our meeting had changed him - having me in his life had given him back the glint in his eye.
Simon & I were soon inseparable, we loved each other’s company, and he was the biggest joker and made me laugh constantly, I felt protected and I adored him.
On September 12th 2015 Simon proposed to me in the most romantic way, at our place in Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth. Obviously I said yes!

We were married in Torquay at a beautiful outdoor ceremony on 15th July 2017 and honeymooned in Jamaica. Our life was set; we were going to travel, have children, and grow old together.
On May 12th 2018, Simon felt Ill, he had a bit of sickness and diarrhoea, it was unusual for Simon to be physically ill, and jokingly told me he thought he had man flu coming on.

By the next day he was worse, and in the early hours of the 14th May he suffered a seizure.It woke me with a fright, I knew sometimes he had suffered with seizures, but in the whole time we had been together I had never seen one. I dialled 999 and we waited for the paramedics, for a while our dog laid across him in bed and wouldn’t let me near him, I think he knew something dreadful was happening. Eventually all three of us lay on the bed, Simon in my arms until the ambulance arrived.

He was admitted to A&E - another seizure followed and suddenly he was moved to Resus where the medics told us he had an infection and that he was going into septic shock.

I didn’t even know what that was, but his kidneys were failing and I knew that was bad and he was moved into the Intensive Care Unit, (ICU), at Torbay Hospital.

Simon had lots of visitors from family, school friends, army friends and his rugby friends.

They knew he had lots to live for, but there was nothing more they could do for him at Torbay.

As he started to have multi organ failure, it was decided that Simon would be transferred to Kings College Hospital in London. On the evening of May 23rd, we travelled up from Devon and I stayed with my sister in East Grinstead and commuted every day to the hospital so I could be with him.

He was on the Critical Care unit until June 9th where at 14.08pm he passed away.
It was at this point Simon’s friends from the Army told me all about SSAFA, the Armed Forces Charity and arranged for them get in touch with me. I spoke to a lovely lady from Gloucester, who organised for someone to contact me when I was back in Devon. I had been home a few days when I received a call from a gentleman who was also lovely and he put me at ease on the phone and arranged for someone to visit.
That’s when I met Tim Porter, he came over and we sat in the garden and chatted, and chatted about everything. He helped me with some paperwork I needed to do, people to contact etc. Tim became a friend, not just to me, but my mum and dad too. We would talk for ages about the Army, and about when he served. I spoke a lot about Simon and we also talked lots about music, which I enjoyed as I’m a singer and was able to easily relate to Tim who is a musician. Tim and SSAFA showed me lots of support. If I needed anything, I knew I could ask.

Tim came to Simon’s funeral on 28th June last year, which was held in Torquay, We didn’t have flowers, but asked for donations for the Torbay Hospital ICU and for Help for Heroes, the charity that Simon supported. He always wore that charity’s bracelet until he was moved to London.
Tim stayed in touch, and he would pop over for coffee, or he would just message me to see how I was. This ongoing support meant a huge amount to me.

Then on August 17th Tim Invited me to be his guest at a garden party at Ugbrooke House near Chudleigh. It was an event hosted by Lord and Lady Clifford to celebrate SSAFA Devon being awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, which is like an MBE for a Charity.

I was very nervous, not having really left the house since Simon’s passing, this was my first social occasion. But I met some lovely people, and listening to the speeches, just really opened my eyes to the extent of the work that SSAFA do and continue to do.
In all, it seems there’s an awful lot of people that don’t know about SSAFA in the civilian world, which is why I decided that for my birthday I was going to use social media (Facebook) to raise money for this charity.

I had heard that they did birthday fundraising for non-profit organisations, so I went on to the list to see if SSAFA was there; it was. I decided first of all I was going to set a goal of £100, but that soon had to be changed as the donations were coming in. Not only were donations coming in, but people were reading about it and they also started to learn about SSAFA and the amazing work they do for our service personnel. Many people shared the facebook page and spread the word to their friends. So I ended up raising £465 in total, and facebook will pay this directly to SSAFA for me.

But not only had I raised money, but also awareness of SSAFA, which is equally important.

I felt like I didn’t deserve the help because Simon had retired when he passed away and I was just his widow with no military connection. But I was wrong, SSAFA help both serving personnel as well as veterans, and their families.

It has been a dreadful ordeal losing the man I love, so suddenly and with so much of our future together cut short. I feel that if the money I raised can be used in any way to help someone else, then I’m pleased and I would have done my lovely husband proud."

Zoe is pictured with Tim Porter and Clive Richards, Branch Publicity Officer.