Young man who died in River Wear has his wish to 'become a tree' honoured in emotional Mother’s Day tribute

Ross Irwin was pulled from the River Wear in Fatfield on Christmas Eve 2016. His dad Dave Irwin believes that Ross lost his footing.

Ross, a civil servant, had told his mam, Debbie Herkes, that he wanted to “become a tree” after death, although Debbie never imagined she would be the one to make it happen.

At a ceremony on Mother’s Day, family and friends gathered to plant a young oak tree, which most of Ross’ ashes now lie beneath.

The event will hopefully make Mother’s Day more tolerable for Debbie, one of five people to speak movingly about her son at the planting, beside Joe’s Pond at Rainton Meadows.

Debbie said: “We always went there walking the dogs there and he went there with his friends.

“I’d grown the tree for six years from him passing, because six-and-a-half weeks before I lost Ross, I lost my dad who I’d cared for for two years with cancer. The reason I knew about Ross wanting to be a tree was because he’d told me what he wanted to do.

“So from growing it from a cell I put a couple of spoonfuls of ashes in. Every time the tree was re-potted another few spoonfuls of ashes have gone in. From the tree being a cell, Ross’ ashes have been added as the tree has grown.

“As you can imagine every Mother’s Day is an absolute nightmare. It’s one of the days of the year when I take it really badly. So what I wanted to do was to switch a negative into a positive.

“Now on Mother’s Day I’m going to think of the day I planted the tree for Ross; or the day I planted Ross with the tree.

“I thinks it’s a really an amazing idea that he wanted to be a tree. Obviously I didn’t think it was going to be me who was doing that for him.

“Now that he’s in the ground I feel he’s going to be there forever as he grows. That’s all I wanted to take from that day.”

A plaque will be added later.