Woman walks 300,000 steps to fundraise after losing mother to heart attack

A woman who lost her mother to a heart attack last Boxing Day has walked 300,000 steps in her memory.

Robyn Stephenson and her family are bracing themselves for both their first Christmas without her mother Lorna, but also the anniversary of her death.

She paid tribute to the former cafe owner who went on to work in sales, as the life of the party, and her best friend, who “lit up every room she walked into”.

Ms Stephenson walked 300,000 steps in November to raise money for the British Heart Foundation – and to try raise awareness of symptoms, adding she knows her mother would have been cheering her on.

She did a lot of her walking along one of her mother’s favourites routes, the Lagan towpath in Aghalee, Co Antrim, and said it helped with grief.

“I had quite a lot of support from my friends and family, they came over after I finished work to come out with me,” she told the Press Association.

“And because my mummy died after a heart attack, I thought, I’ll do it through the British Heart Foundation, because that covers all areas surrounding the heart and raise money for them. I just thought something like that would mean something.

“You have your good days and your bad days when you’re grieving… going out and having that fresh air helps, and if my friends of my auntie joined me for a walk so you had that social side too. If something had been bothering me or I was struggling, it helped me, instead of staying locked up in the house.”

She recalled noticing something not quite right with her mother on Boxing Day.

“I didn’t know at the time, that feeling that you might be sick is like a symptom a heart attack,” she said.

“At Christmas time you’re all with your family, and you’re having fun and you’re having a couple of drinks and stuff, so it wasn’t really anything that would have alarmed us.

“She was a very happy go-lucky person so if anything was wrong with her, she would never say it.

“I didn’t know things like that, so something that, like, I’m looking out for now, within my own life, and my family, if they say something’s wrong with them.

“I just want to help continue on the research, and to raise awareness, for everyone else be more made aware of it because I didn’t have a clue.”

She added: “She’s dearly missed by all her family and friends and there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t think of her and wish she was still here.”

Fearghal McKinney, head of British Heart Foundation Northern Ireland (BHF NI), said they are working towards more treatments and cures with lifesaving research into heart and circulatory diseases.

“Despite six decades of BHF progress, it is heart breaking to know that at this special time of year so many families like Robyn’s have suffered unimaginable loss, and others are hoping and waiting for treatments and cures that we just don’t have yet,” he said.

“But thanks to the generosity of BHF supporters, we can fund vital research to drive progress and find those breakthroughs and cures of tomorrow.”

To donate to the British Heart Foundation this festive season and give a gift that keeps on living, visit bhf.org.uk/Christmas