A mother has made a public appeal for the return of her mobile phone, which holds priceless photos of her stillborn baby.
Fiona Dillon from Adelaide left her iPhone 6 at her local supermarket on Tuesday night. When she went back to retrieve it moments later, it was gone.
She’s desperate to have it returned — because the phone contains images she took of her stillborn son, Owen, and his funeral.
She lost her little boy five months ago.
“I don’t care about the phone itself because I just want the photos back. I can’t replace the photos I have of Owen,” Ms Dillon told Daily Mail Australia.
“I spent three days with him after he died so the time I spent with him was all captured on my phone. It just has so much personal and sentimental value to me.”
Ms Dillon has taken to Facebook to plead for the return of her phone in a touching post and photo of her stillborn baby.
“Please like and share – Help me get my phone back and recover precious, irreplaceable memories of Owen,” she wrote on Facebook.
“Hi everyone, as you may know, my iPhone 6 was stolen from Woolworths Seaford Meadows at approximately 6pm on Tuesday 19 May 2015. I put it down at the self-serve checkout and accidentally left it behind. When I realised after a few minutes what I had done, it had been taken.
“My hope is that whoever has my phone can find it in their heart to give me back something that I can never replace.
Thank you.”
At the time of publishing, the post had been shared nearly 70,000 times.
Reaching out for help for a beautiful family that I have been blessed to know and photograph! Please share this, I am…
Posted by Pure Mint Photography on Wednesday, 20 May 2015
Ms Dillon is also the mother of one-year-old daughter, Olive.
Read more:
New laws bring much-needed relief and recognition to parents of stillborn children.
‘She is perfect’: parents share images of their stillborn children.
Let’s get miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss out in the open.
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Top Comments
I'd like to think that the person who nicked the phone might be shamed into giving it back, but probably not. Has she considered offering a small reward to get them thinking?
I am deeply disturbed by the 'back up your data' comments. As a mother who's son was stillborn 2 years ago, something I have learnt is that grief is hard work. There are no words to describe the feeling of devastating loss. 5 months can feel like 5 minutes. Try getting up in the morning or going to sleep at night, showering, blinking without letting tears out, going out in public etc let alone planning a funeral, looking after other children, watching your partner grieve, going back to work, the list is endless. Life keeps going on, but it's like you're walking through a fog or lost at sea. Some things get left by the way side. Leaving such callous comments isn't going to help anyone, besides making this mother who has already endured the unthinkable feel worse.
I can only imagine the pain of not being able to look at the pictures of my little boy every day, I hope Fiona is given back her phone soon along with her photos.