From the second he was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧, just a few days into the start of the new millennium, the bond between Alison Lapper and her son Parys was an extraordinary one.
‘He was put on my breast and I could touch him with my shoulder. It was an amazing feeling,’ she said, in an interview, just a few weeks after his 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡.
‘They always talk about the love you have for your 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 being unlike any other — and I finally understood.’
Determined to do as much as she could for her son herself, the fiercely independent mother — due to a congenital condition, she was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 with no arms and tiny shortened legs — breastfed her son for ten months, learned to change his nappy with her feet, and even (when he was still small) managed to lift him with her teeth.
Later, Parys would ride around on his mother’s lap as she manoeuvred in a wheelchair, progressing to the arm of the chair as he got bigger; which happened quickly, the cherubic blond-haired boy outᵴtriƥping his mother’s 3ft 11in frame by the time he headed off to school.
A tremendous mother-son relationship, a remarkable bond of trust. In later years, Alison and Parys would talk of the importance of that trust as he grew, negotiating the perils of busy roads and the like.
Not in a position to grab her son by the hand, Alison’s voice was her means of protecting her son.
It is all of those things that make Parys Lapper’s sudden death at the age of 19 so utterly tragic.
The circumstances of his death are unknown; Alison’s fiancé Si Clift gave no further detail when he announced on Facebook ‘tragically, Parys Lapper, who was only 19 years old, died suddenly a week ago’.
In a message to followers, he described Parys as ‘a mischievous, generous, kind, loving, frustrating, cheeky, forgiving, beautiful boy. He was his own man. He was a good son.’
Alison, an artist, posted a photographic tribute to the 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 she once thought she would never be able to have, a montage of images taken through the years.
Her social media pages document the warmth of their relationship; smiling together at parties and events, his arm flung affectionately around her shoulder in front of a white Christmas tree.
Today, many other people who never knew Parys personally will also feel a sense of grief at his death.
