New Zealand mother holidaying in Shropshire has pendant containing son's ashes returned after Facebook plea
A mother has said she has been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers who helped reunite her with an irreplaceable pendant which she lost during a holiday.
Nicole Shimmin, from New Zealand, made a desperate plea over Facebook to the people of Ironbridge after she lost a pendant which contained her son’s ashes.
While some may have thought that recovering the much-loved and sentimental necklace would be impossible, someone reading the social media message realised her boss had found the pendant.
Within a few days the missing necklace had been traced.
Nicole said she has been overwhelmed with the response from people in Shropshire and is over the moon that the pendant is now on its way back to her.
The pendant contains the ashes of her son Luis, who died three years ago as an infant, and she was devastated thinking that she had lost it.
Nicole, 37, was in Shropshire with her husband Drew, originally from the Wirral, visiting family in Shrewsbury with their two children, 11-year-old Aria and six-year-old Fin.
She said: “We were on holiday last month visiting my husband’s family.
“The necklace is something I never take off and after a day trip to Ironbridge I realised that it had gone.
“I didn’t know where it had gone but was so attached to it knew it must have been there.
“We checked with family and friends first and emailed the Ironbridge museums with no luck, so posting on the Ironbridge Facebook page was my last resort.”
The post said: “I am from New Zealand and was on holiday last month in the UK we visited Ironbridge on Thursday August 3 for the whole day visiting the museums, the bridge and a cute cafe directly opposite the bridge that sold cream teas.
“Unfortunately I have lost my necklace there, I was hoping it would turn up in my luggage or clothing but it hadn’t. It is a silver chain with an angel wing pendant attached.
“Inside of the pendant are my son’s ashes so it’s pretty important to me. We have arrived back to New Zealand and I’m hoping that someone has picked it up or handed it in somewhere. If anyone could help that would be amazing.”
Nicola said that after she put up the post, she couldn’t believe how quickly the message spread
She said she had had an enormous number of messages from strangers offering to help.
She said: “I had a huge amount of messages from people offering to act as courier for me, to people who knew people travelling to New Zealand who could hand deliver it to me and others who loved the story and just offered their support.
“Their kindness and support has been a real eye opener on how many amazing caring people are out there.
“A few people had seen a post that ended up not being my necklace and then I got one message from a lady who said her boss had it. She messaged me then posted to me that day.”
Nicole added: “We lost my son three years ago.
“I was 24 weeks pregnant and a lot of things went wrong.
“I have never been so sad for so long and still to this day struggle with the loss. This necklace is the only thing I have that I can keep close to me and losing it broke my heart all over again.
“To know it’s coming home to me just take so much weight off my shoulders and a peace in my heart again.”
