Klayton Duncan Hoyland Smith (20 Dec 1992 - 7 Nov 2025)

Dear Dad,

We miss you more than words can ever explain.

You weren’t just our dad — you were our safe place, our laughter, and so many of our happiest memories. We still think about all the times you took us to the park, pushing us on the swings, making us laugh, and just being there with us. Those moments meant everything, and they always will.

You loved treating us and making us feel special. You always called us your princesses, and that’s something we’ll carry in our hearts forever. We were so lucky to be your two daughters, and we hope you knew just how much we loved being yours.

We still have the slide you bought us, and every time we see it, it reminds us of you — of your kindness, your love, and the way you always wanted to make us smile.

Thank you for teaching us how to ride a bike, for believing in us, and for never giving up on us even when we were scared. Those little things you did are now some of the biggest memories we hold onto.

Life feels different without you here, and we miss you so much it hurts. But we carry you with us every day — in our memories, in our hearts, and in everything you taught us.

It was my birthday the other day we all sat round the table talking about how you give mummy food poisoning 😂
We was just missing you💔

We will always be your princesses.

To the moon and stars
Your two daughters
Gracie and Meme 💕🫶

My Klay-play,

I don’t know if letters reach where you are, but I need to believe that somehow, some way, you can feel this.

I still call you Klay-play in my head. It makes me smile and break at the same time. We met when we were just kids—17 and 16—like we had all the time in the world to figure things out. And maybe we didn’t always get it right… we didn’t have the easiest story, did we? But we had our story. And there was love in it. Real love.

I keep thinking about the good parts lately. Dancing in the kitchen for no reason, just laughing and being stupid together. Sneaking around like we were still teenagers, even when life had already made us grow up too fast. Those moments felt so light… like nothing else mattered.

And then there’s the life we made. Our two beautiful girls. You gave me them—us. That will always be the greatest piece of you still here with me. I see you in them more than you’ll ever know.

I think about that time we reconnected, and how it felt like no time had passed at all. Like you never really left. You showed up the way you always did—looking after us, thinking of the girls. I can still see them playing on that slide you got them for their birthday, hear the laughter filling the garden. That BBQ… it was such a simple day, but it meant everything. It felt like old times. It felt like us.

I wish we had more of those days.

There’s so much I could say, but it always comes back to this—I’m grateful for you. For the love we had, even when it was messy. For the memories that still live in the quiet corners of my mind. For the way you cared for us, in your own way.

I miss you more than I can explain. And I hope, wherever you are, you know that you were loved. You are loved. You always will be.

I’ll keep telling our girls about you. About your laugh, your kindness, the way you made ordinary moments feel special. I’ll keep your memory alive in them, in me, in all the little things that remind me of you. Leah sent me the video of you pushing the girls on the swing the other day to hear the girls shout daddy daddy faster made my heart hurt
I don’t no if I’m ever going to be back to my normal self but Im hurting.💔

My Klay-play… you’ll always have a piece of my heart.

Always yours,

Dad,

Losing you left a silence
no words can truly fill.

But in that silence
we hear echoes of you—
your laughter in our memories,
your advice in our thoughts,
your love in everything you taught us.

You showed us how to be strong
without losing our kindness,
how to face the world bravely
even when it feels unfair.

We wish we had one more day,
one more hug,
one more chance to say
how much you meant to us.

But even though you are gone from sight,
you are never gone from our hearts.

You live in the stories we tell,
in the lessons we carry,
and in the love between us
that you helped create.

Thank you for being our dad,
our guide,
our greatest supporter.

We will carry your love
for the rest of our lives.

Love you moon and stars your princess❤️❤️❤️❤️

still catch myself thinking about you in the quiet moments.

In the middle of an ordinary day, something small happens — a song, a smell, a joke you would’ve loved — and for a split second I reach for you like you’re still here. Like I could still text you. Like we still have time.

We didn’t end up together, and life took us down different roads, but that never erased what we were to each other. What we shared was real. The love, the laughter, the hard days, the growing up side by side — all of it mattered. You mattered.

There are things I wish I’d said. Things I wish I’d done differently. But more than anything, I wish you were still here, somewhere in this world, living and breathing and becoming whoever you were meant to be.

It’s strange missing someone who used to be “mine,” but isn’t anymore — and still feeling that loss so deeply. Grief doesn’t seem to care about labels like ex or past. It just knows the heart once loved, and that love doesn’t disappear.

I hope you knew, somewhere deep down, that you were important to me. That you changed me. That parts of who I am will always carry pieces of you.

I talk to you sometimes, in my head. I hope you’d smile at that.

I miss you. I always will.
And I’m grateful I got to love you at all
Me and the girls miss you forever and always ❤️

My precious boy

Today is my birthday, the first one without you here and I don't quite know how to hold the day.

Birthdays were never about presents, they were about you baking a cake and singing happy birthday to me, sometimes off key but always with that smile that filled the whole room. I would give anything to hear that again and to see you standing there so proudly with the cake you made, waiting for me to blow out the candles. You made me feel loved in the purest way.

I miss you in ways words can't fully carry. I miss your voice, your laugh, the way you made ordinary moments feel special.

Today, there's an ache where joy used to be. But there is also gratitude.
Gratitude that I got to be your mum.
Gratitude for every birthday we shared.
Gratitude for the love you gave me so freely.
That love hasn't gone anywhere.
I carry it with me, in my heart, in my memories, in every quiet moment.

If you were here, I know exactly what you'd say. I can almost hear it. So today, I'll imagine your voice, l'll picture your cake, and I'll close my eyes when I make my wish. My wish will be the same as always, that wherever you are, you feel how deeply, endlessly loved you are.

All my love, always and forever mum 💔🕊️xxxxxxxxxxx

My brother… in your resting place, though my heart knows in spirit you’re not really resting. That’s not who you were. Your energy, laughter, strength, love and loyalty all wrapped into one soul. Your spirit is too loud, too bright, too alive to ever be still.

I come here to honor you, to talk to you, to feel close to you… but nothing prepares me for the silence. Standing here feels unreal… it hurts in ways I can’t explain. 💔 I hope you know my love reaches beyond the silence, beyond the distance, beyond this life.

Being your sibling is the greatest gift of my life but losing you has been the hardest pain I’ve ever known... a pain that lives quietly in my chest and follows me everywhere I go. I feel you everywhere, I feel you guiding me, protecting me and walking beside me even now. Your love, your light and your memory carry me forward. I wasn't ready to let you go and I don't think I ever will be.

Until the day I see you again, my brother… keep watching over me, keep walking beside me. Know that not a single day passes that I don’t think of you. You will always be my brother, my protector, my guide. I love and miss you so, so much, Klay. ❤️Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My beautiful Klayton,

On the 7th of November, at just 32 years old, you left this world far too soon. Today we laid you to rest, and with every step, every prayer, every tear, we carried a love for you that will never fade.

You were one of a kind, so caring, so loving, and so incredibly funny. You had a way of making people feel safe, understood, and lighter just by being yourself. Your laugh could fill a room, and your heart could hold so many people inside it.

Thirty-two years will never feel like enough. There were still so many moments to share, so many laughs to have, so many memories waiting to be made. But in the time we were blessed with you, you gave us a lifetime of love.

As I placed you in your final resting place today, it felt impossible to say goodbye. So instead, I say thank you, thank you for being my son, for your kindness, for your humour, for the joy you brought into my life.

You may be out of my sight, but you will never be out of my heart. I will carry you with me, in every smile, every story, every quiet moment when I feel you close.

Rest peacefully, my precious boy.
Until I hold you again
All my love always mum ❤️xxxxx

For ten years you were the sound of the gate, the turn of a handle,
the breath I didn’t know I was holding
finally letting go.
You’d call me Em, like no one else ever could,
You would walk through the door
and somehow the world felt steadier. I’d make a coffee. You’d pull me into that hug.
We’d say, “just one night,” and somehow one night always became home.
We weren’t perfect. We were fire and storms and stubborn hearts. But when we loved,
we loved hard. And in your arms I felt safe.
You showed up in ways no one else saw
money through the letterbox
when pride kept us apart,
pizza and chips for breakfast in bed,
staying when I was ill,
holding our boy like he was your whole world.
You had battles inside you
that I couldn’t always fight for you.
The noise,the people who pulled you away.
But beneath all of it there was the man who loved me, and I loved him back with everything I had.
Today we laid you down.
And it is the hardest goodbye I have ever had to say.
Because it was always supposed to be you
walking back through that gate.
Always supposed to be “just one night”
turning into forever.
My heart will always listen
for the sound of you coming threw the gate.
Goodnight, babe
Thank you for the laughter.
Thank you for the safety.
Thank you for the years.
Through every up and down,
through every goodbye and return,
through everything it was you.
I will forever love you endlessly 💔

KLAYTON

Happy Valentine’s Day in Heaven, my precious son.

Not a single day has passed in these three months that I haven’t thought of you. I carry you with me in every heartbeat, in every quiet moment, in every memory that still makes me smile through tears. The love I have for you didn’t end when you left this world, it only changed form. It is deeper now, stretched across heaven and earth, unbreakable and eternal.

Today, I send my love to you the only way I can, through whispered prayers, through the sky and the quiet stars at night. I hope you can feel it. I hope you know how fiercely you are loved.

Until I can hold you again, I will hold on to our memories.
Until I can see your smile again, I will close my eyes and picture it.
Until we meet again, I will love you with everything I am.

Love you always mum 💔 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx