Family’s moving journey to bury 4-year-old son Akel alongside his grandparents in Eidsvold

Covid lockdowns kept an Ipswich family from taking their 4-year-old son back to country, after he spent his life fighting a rare and complex heart condition.

A brave little boy who battled for all of his young life with a rare and complex heart condition has been laid to rest alongside generations of his family after Covid restrictions delayed a heartbreaking final farewell back home.

Akel Fuller-Chapman was born in 2017 with a congenital heart defect called hypoblastic left heart syndrome which meant he spent 40 per cent of his life in the Queensland Children’s Hospital.

Parents Tim and Lyndsey and their five children moved from the small country town of Eidsvold, about two hours inland of Bundaberg, to Ipswich so they could be close to the hospital.

Akel with parents Tim and Lyndsey.

He was only four-years-old when he passed away on July 20.

Akel had his first open heart surgery when he was only a week old and his second at six months.

Despite the constant surgeries, specialists appointments and emergency trips, Akel took it in his stride with a smile on his face.

Plans on holding a funeral service back in Eidsvold and to take him back to country were dashed due to the recent southeast Queensland lockdown but the moment it lifted, the family headed up north.

“We left straight away,” Tim said.

“It was a pretty small service. There were limited numbers. The people that came were the people that we really wanted to be there.”

Akel was buried in the Eidsvold Cemetery.

“That’s where we’re all originally from and born and bred,” Tim said.

Akel in hospital with his parents and siblings. The family moved to Ipswich from Eidsvold to be close to the Queensland Children’s Hospital.

“There’s a few that live down here. Other than that they sort of don’t make life anywhere else. They live in Eidsvold.

“That’s where all (Akel’s) people are. My grandparents are buried there. Lyndsey’s grandparents are buried there as well.

“We considered (burying him) somewhere close to us but then we thought at the end of the day, we’re going to be going home.”

While their kids travelled back to Ipswich for school, Tim and Lyndsey stayed in their home town for two weeks.

It wasn’t easy coming back, especially as they arrived home on Father’s Day.

But the support of the Leichhardt neighbourhood where they live and the wider Ipswich community had been overwhelming.

“At the moment we’re just taking it day by day,” Tim said.

His dad said he took each day in his stride.

“Things get to you when you’re going through clothes and there’s just a constant reminder of him in the household.

“I was trying to work in between while Akel was healthy. Once he was in hospital I could not find myself going work. He’s my best friend and I had to be beside him.

“Lyndsey had to look after the other little ones. Lyndsey’s mum Odette would come and look after the kids while we were at the hospital with him all the time.

“We were blown away with people’s generosity. We didn’t know people out there were like that. Just their kindness with gift cards and food vouchers. Hymba Yumba independent School at Springfield donated a lot of groceries and food once they heard about Akel’s situation.

Akel had his first open heart surgery when he was only one week old.

“Their support meant everything with what we were going through.”

Tim said they planned to head back to Eidsvold for the school holidays.

“We keep ourselves occupied,” he said.

“We were brought up in the bush. We hunt, we get bush tucker and we go fishing. We try to eat as much of our native foods as we can before coming home. It’s that connection.

“Being connected to country we also like to paint our kids up traditionally. We take them to our river, the Burnett River. It’s sort of cleansing, the water.”

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.