We Love You Story

“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
Khalil Gibran

Separation is often a heart-breaking word. When disunion happens in a family, the consequences on a child’s mind and future can be devastating. In order to help to minimise the effect on everyone involved, I have created a set of two books, one for parents and one for children, designed to provide support before, during and after separation.

My name is Herve G-WERY, MUTTON Founder and Director. I’m an architect and a designer and I have dedicated the past 17 years to script development, filming and producing.

I started to draw this sheep character when I met my wife 12 years ago. It originally appeared on our Christmas and anniversary cards, and since then many people have asked me to draw it for them. I think for me, symbolically it represented Britain, the new country

I had come to live in – nice, stoical animal, eating green grass all around and lots of warm wool when needed!

Sadly in 2011 my wife and I engaged in a process of separation, when our daughter was just 4 years old. I wasn’t ready for this and yes, it hurts. One day you are a family pack the next you become a lone stranger with broken dreams…

One essential positive element was that through the process, my wife and I were both determined to protect our daughter as much as we could from the effect of the separation on her. We did everything we could – we sought advice, read books and went online, but nothing seemed to really provide us with the help we were looking for, or answer all of our expectations.

In response to our frustrations, I decided to create a personalised book for our daughter. It took me three weeks to craft the final version, which was made up of pictures and cartoons, as she could not read. Waiting for the right moment to present the book to her was quite strained. It was a Sunday afternoon. I remember it well. She was sitting between us. I opened the book and begun to tell her our story.

We might not be a loving couple anymore but we will be parenting couple forever.

In the first chapter she discovered how mum and dad met, fall in love and got married. The second chapter showed her arrival and the lovely shared time we all had together. The third chapter illustrated that as life went on, mum and dad realised that there were some differences between them and so decided to go their own ways – but how no matter what happened between us all: “we love you!” (her). The fourth chapter talked about the future ‘You will have two houses, two bedrooms, going to school with mum or dad, and we will have still fun. But most important of all: ‘No matter what: We love you!”

 

We shut the book and after a little silence she said; and I quote here: ‘Thank you for my book!‘ It was priceless. I will never forget that. The very next day, we had some visiting friends with theirs kids. The very first thing our daughter did was to grab the book, showing it to both children and said: ’Look, look how much my parents love me!’ That was amazing. Beautiful. I was moved. It was such a pure moment and provided some extra healing for all of us.

Whenever I visit my wife’s house, to go to pick up our daughter, the book is always somewhere around her in the house.

Today I wish to help separated parents and their children benefit from this fantastic experience in the same way that we did. Since 2014 I have been working on the concept and design of two new books  in order to help and support family children, heal the separation wound.

Watch the crowdfunding video below: