The Flock: Where Small Wings Carry Big Stories

I’m not quite sure where to start with this.

For months, I’ve wanted to write pages and pages, but it was never a priority over everything else going on in my life.

Today, however, I’m not writing a blog simply because I feel I should have something to say. I’m writing because I feel the need to say it.

When I began building MAEKR & CHILD from the ground up, one of my greatest frustrations was trying to be seen. Like many small businesses, I became caught up in reviews, sales, search engine optimisation, photography, product descriptions and the constant question of how to reach the right people. I wondered how to attract new followers and questioned whether I really needed to put my private life out into the world just to be noticed.

But through all the stress and planning of deciding where to take this, it seems to have quietly taken itself somewhere I never expected.

I created a page called Join the Flock and began collecting stories from the people who had bought my robins. If I’m completely honest, I originally just wanted some photographs and perhaps a little proof that my robins really were finding their way into people’s homes. What came back was something far more powerful and personal.

People don’t buy my work simply to look at it.

They buy it to live with it.

The robins are not placed somewhere to keep grief buried in the past. They are placed within people’s everyday lives, surrounded by love, memory and hope.

One gentleman told me that his robin sits beside a photograph of him and his wife, Sue, on their first cruise together in 1996.

“I get to see it every day.”

It struck me that he wasn’t really telling me where he had hung the artwork.

He was telling me where he had placed a memory.

Another person shared this story:

“My mum never got to see my new house before she died, but on the morning I moved in, I was standing on my own in the kitchen, a little overwhelmed by everything. Who should come and visit? A little robin sat on the patio by the back door, as if taking a peek inside. She came every day that first week. I think just to check that I was OK. On the first morning that she didn’t visit, I knew it was all going to be OK.”

I’m beginning to understand that I am not simply finding places for artwork. I am helping people find places for memories - small, everyday spaces where love can remain present as life continues.

Sometimes the loss is bigger than the picture. But the picture can give that loss somewhere to be held. What began with the hope that someone might buy a robin has become something far greater than I could ever have imagined.

Every story is completely unique, yet beneath each one is something deeply familiar: love, loss, memory, and the need to feel less alone.

Thank you to every person and every family who has trusted me with their story so far.

I feel deeply honoured to bring them together as part of The Flock.

If a robin feels meaningful to you, or you have a story you would like to share, you are warmly invited to become part of The Flock. You never know who may need to read your story, or how much it might help them feel a little less alone.