The Founder’s Story
I was 18 when Nala and Simba came into my life. I wasn’t okay.
I’d lived with anxiety and depression for years. Growing up had been hard, and finding my place in the world felt harder. Some days I couldn’t have told you what was wrong. I just knew I had to get through them.
They didn’t need me to explain. They were just there, through some of the darkest and happiest moments of my life. They weren’t pets I happened to own. They were company when I didn’t know how to ask for it.
I struggled a lot with dissociation, those moments when you drift so far from yourself that nothing feels real. Simba used to place his paw on my arm. Again and again, as if he knew. That small weight brought me back more times than I can count.
Letting go
In time, I had to be honest with myself. The life we were living wasn’t the one I wanted for any of us. I loved them, and loving them meant admitting that things had to change.
Keeping them would have been easier for me. It wouldn’t have been right for them. I didn’t want to hold on just because I couldn’t bear to say goodbye.
The happiest part
Nala and Simba went to loving family homes, with other cats and a family to belong to for the rest of their lives.
For years, they’d carried me. In the end, I got to do something for them.
It broke my heart a little. It also made me happier than I can explain, because by then I was well enough to make that choice and to know it was the right one.
Sometimes love means keeping someone close. Sometimes it means making sure they have the life they deserve, even when that life is somewhere else.
Why Ward
When I started MILLHIGH, I wanted it to stand for more than clothes. I wanted something real at its heart.
Ward is that. He isn’t Nala or Simba. He’s what they left me with: knowing that the ones who help us through deserve to be honoured, and cared for in return.
If you’re going through something you can’t explain right now, I hope Ward reminds you that it can change. It did for me.
— Callum
WARD — A tribute to the ones who help us through.
MILLHIGH. Built In Silence. Made For Legacy.