My beautiful, vibrant, life-loving mother, Mary, passed away on February 26th from a glioblastoma multiforme, in the tender care of the staff of St. Francis Hospice, Blanchardstown. Mom's illness robbed her of so many things - the ability to walk, the ability to care for herself, feed herself and even made communication difficult. She never complained and she never worried about herself, only us, as she always did. In her last stay in hospital in August of 2018, doctors told us she had mere weeks left to live and would require hospice care. We were devastated. Mom moved into the hospice in Blanchardstown on the 16th of August 2018 and lived there, happily, for 6 whole months. The staff in St Francis Hospice gave Mom her life back not to mention her tireless and infectious joie de vivre. They cherished her and looked after her like one of their own. We were encouraged to have as many sleepovers, birthday celebrations and movie nights with Mom as possible and we took full advantage! We are eternally grateful to the staff for facilitating those beautiful moments and for going above and beyond in the care they gave to Mom and the dignity and respect with which she was treated.

It costs €15.2m per year to provide the excellent services that St Francis Hospice provides in North Dublin, of which €10.7m is funded by the HSE. This means that the hospice must raise €4.5m per year to cover the costs of their services which are provided completely free of charge to the patients and families in their care.

Myself, my beautiful wife Emily and two of her gorgeous sisters Anna and Sophie are running to help the hospice provide the services to families like ourselves, without which we would have been lost.

We would encourage you to contribute whatever you can for this beyond worthy cause and in loving memory of the utterly wonderful Mary Leonard-Seymour.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Maro's Babas xxx