My Darling Frankie,

Happy 12th Birthday, my beautiful boy.

It’s Saturday, 29 November 2025, and you would have been twelve years old today. Twelve. When I hold that number in my mind, I can almost see you, on the cusp of becoming a teenager, all gangly limbs and contradictions, still my baby but already reaching toward independence. I wonder what your voice would sound like now, whether it would be starting to change. I wonder if you’d roll your eyes at me like twelve-year-olds do, or if you’d still let me hug you in front of your friends.

But I don’t get to know these things, do I, my darling? And the not knowing, well, that’s the hardest part.

Twelve years ago today, at 33 weeks, you were born sleeping. You never opened your eyes to see my face, never cried out for me, never breathed the air of this world. You had the most severe cleft lip and palate, talipes that meant you’d never walk, and Chromosome 15 Duplication Syndrome that came from me, from my maternal chromosome. For the longest time, Frankie, I blamed myself for that. I carried that guilt like stones in my pockets, weighing me down with every step.

But you know what I’ve learned, my love? You taught me something profound even in your silence: that I was always meant to be your mother, exactly as I am. My neurodivergence, my autism, my ADHD, all the things that made that chromosome 15 duplication possible, they’re also the things that have allowed me to honour your legacy in ways I never imagined. You got those chromosomes from me, but you also got my fierce determination, my need to make meaning from chaos, my drive to protect others. Those parts of me have rippled outward in your name.

When I think about what you’ve missed in these twelve years, my heart breaks all over again. You missed your first day of school, your first lost tooth, your first football match or drama production or science fair. You missed birthday parties with too much cake and not enough sleep. You missed discovering Star Wars like I always planned to show you, missed learning about all the sci-fi worlds I wanted to share with you. You missed scraped knees and homework battles and all the glorious, mundane moments that make up a childhood.

But Frankie, here’s what you haven’t missed: you haven’t missed making an impact on this world. Because everything I have done since you were born sleeping, I’ve done in your name.

When I was presented with my MBE by King Charles III on 18 December 2023, I stood in Windsor Castle in front of King Charles, and I thought only of you. When I became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for IT Security on 1 May this year, I saw your name reflected in those letters after mine. When I founded Cyber Security Unity to bring people together and create inclusive spaces in the cyber security industry, and Neuro Unity to champion and promote neuroinclusion for all, I was building the kind of world I wish you could have inhabited. One that makes room for everyone, including those with significant disabilities like you would have had.

Every organisation I’ve helped protect from cyber-attacks; I’ve done it thinking about making the world safer for children like you. Every person I’ve coached through bullying, abuse and trauma because of my own experiences with all three, every inclusive space I’ve created, every word I’ve written, it’s all been your legacy, my darling boy. You were here for such a short time, born at 33 weeks after I carried you with hope and so much love for you in my heart. But your ripple has reached further than most people who live to be a hundred.

I’m writing your story now, Frankie. It’s all here on this blog again after five years of silence, and next year there will be a book – “Frankie’s Legacy: Love, Loss, Grief and Recovery.” Your name will be read by people all over the world. Your story will give hope to other empty armed mothers like me. Other families dealing with cleft lip and palate, with talipes, with rare chromosome disorders, with early pregnancy loss and stillbirth. They’ll know they’re not alone because you were here.

I’ve been building an empire in your name, my love. Cyber Security Unity, Neuro Unity, AI Unity, and next year the AI and Security Association. My book on artificial intelligence in cyber security will be published by Kogan Page in April 2026. I promised King Charles III I would continue this work as long as I have breath in my body. But really, Frankie, I promised you that on November 29, 2013, when I held your perfect, silent body for the first and last time.

The last twelve years have been the hardest of my life. There have been days I didn’t think I could go on. I’ve faced horrendous bullying and abuse from people who should have loved me unconditionally. I’ve been suicidal more times than I can count and wanted to end my own life so I could be with you. I’ve been broken and rebuilt and broken again. But I’m still here, my darling. I’m still fighting. Because you’re worth fighting for.

Your Daddy and I, we fell apart under the weight of losing you. That’s another thing grief does; it changes everything and everyone it touches. But I hope you know that he loved you too, that he wanted you just as much as I did, that you were our son together even if only briefly.

I need you to know something important, my beautiful boy: I would trade it all. Every achievement, every award, every recognition, my MBE from King Charles III, every single thing I’ve built. I would give it all away in a heartbeat to hold you in my arms just once while you were breathing. To see your eyes open. To hear you cry. To watch you grow up, even with all the challenges you would have faced.

But since I can’t have that, since I can’t be your mother in the way I dreamed of being, I choose to be your mother through legacy. I choose to make sure that although you were a small pebble dropped into the lake of life, your ripple is felt forever.

You made me a mother, Frankie. Not in the traditional way, but in the truest way. You taught me about unconditional love, about fighting for what matters, about finding meaning in the darkest places. You taught me that I could survive the unsurvivable. That I could build something beautiful from something broken. That being your mother doesn’t require you to be here physically, it requires me to carry you in everything I do.

I talk to you, you know. When I’m writing, when I’m speaking to audiences, when I’m helping someone through their own trauma. I ask you for strength. I ask you to guide me. And somehow, through the fog of grief that never quite lifts, I feel you there. My boy who never breathed but who breathes life into everything I do.

On this, your 12th birthday, I want to make you new promises. I promise to keep telling your story. I promise to keep fighting for inclusive spaces where children like you would be celebrated, not hidden away. I promise to keep raising awareness about stillbirth and baby loss, about rare chromosome disorders, about the one in four women who become empty armed mothers like me. I promise to keep making you proud.

And I promise to keep being honest about the cost of it all. About how success and grief can coexist. About how you can achieve great things and still wake up crying because your arms are empty. About how you can be recognised and honoured and still feel like a fraud because the only title that mattered, being called “Mummy” by your voice, is one that I will never hear.

You would have been twelve today, my darling son. Moving into that awkward, wonderful space between childhood and adolescence. Maybe you’d be into gaming or music or books. Maybe you’d be terrible at maths like me (the dyscalculia runs deep, my love) but brilliant at something I never expected. Maybe you’d be navigating your own neurodivergence, learning to understand your autism the way I’ve had to learn to understand mine.

I imagine all these versions of you, Frankie. All these possible futures that will never be. And it still breaks my heart every single day.

But here’s the thing Frankie: you exist. You are real. You were here. Francesco “Frankie” Enrico Ventura, born sleeping on November 29, 2013. You had a severe cleft lip and palate that would have given you such a distinctive smile. You had talipes that meant your journey would have been different from others but no less valuable. You had Chromosome 15 Duplication Syndrome that meant you would have needed me every single day of your life, and oh, how I wish I could have been there for every single one of those days.

You are not forgotten. You are not invisible. You are not “what might have been.” You are my son. My only son. And I am your mother.

Happy 12th Birthday, my darling Frankie. I love you more than all the stars in all the galaxies we would have explored together. I carry you with me in every breath, every word, every achievement. You are my purpose. You are my why. You are my heart.

And I promise you this: I will make sure your ripple continues forever.

All my love, always and forever,

Your Mummy

Lisa Ventura MBE FCIIS
Cyber Security Awareness Specialist, Journalist, Writer and Speaker
Founder, Unity Group Solutions
Founder, AI and Security Association
Founder, Neuro Unity
Founder, Cyber Security Unity
Author, “Artificial Intelligence in Cyber Security: How to Harness AI to Defend Your Organisation and Avoid Threats ” (forthcoming, Kogan Page Publishers)
Trauma-Focused Coach and Therapist for Cyber Security Professionals

But most importantly… Frankie’s Mummy