their win over the Crusaders <\/a>on Friday night, shared the update on social media today.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are heartbroken to share that our beautiful boy Leo has gained his angel wings,\u201d Ta\u2019avao wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a brief battle in PICU [Pediatric Intensive Care Unit], Leo passed away surrounded by his loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo was born with partial-trisomy-13 \u2013 a genetic disorder which affected a child’s ability to grow \u2013 and spent the first three months of his life in hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have left a giant Leo-sized hole in our hearts darling, we will miss you so, so much. Til we meet again our baby boy,\u201d Ta\u2019avao wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
In a 2018 interview with Stuff, when Leo was just 14 months old, Ta\u2019avao spoke of his young son being his inspiration.<\/p>\n
“If I’m having a difficult day, seeing him makes it all better,” Ta\u2019avao said.<\/p>\n
“The smile he gives us, gets me. It sounds so clich\u00e9, but when I see that, it melts my heart.”<\/p>\n
The sad news has prompted an outpouring of support for the Ta\u2019avao family.<\/p>\n
All Blacks vice-captain Ardie Savea wrote: “Praying and thinking of you and the family, uso.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks prop Angus Ta\u2019avao”s son Leo has died. Ta’avao, a former Chiefs and Blues squad member…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[789,33339,17909,42,52362,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-287931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-all-blacks","9":"tag-blues","10":"tag-chiefs","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-highlanders","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}