Sadness and relief mixed together as I clutched my daughter’s hand as she took her last breath. She was in anguish, and my lovely, tornado of a daughter was gone. Being the mother of a deceased child is difficult every day, but tomorrow will be very difficult.
I will always be a mother of three children, even though one of them has passed away. However, my thoughts are with my grandchildren today, who lost a great mother. It’s not acceptable for them to give her a hug or send her a card. All I can do for them now, like I have for the last twenty-one months, is love and support them.
Dame Deborah James, my eldest daughter, passed away five and a half years after receiving the diagnosis of intestinal cancer. Her age was forty. The idea that the world has continued without her is still difficult to accept. From her early years, she was already such a powerful force in the world.
Deborah, who was 35 years old and has two children, ages nine and seven, was diagnosed in December of 2016. She was a young, healthy, energetic woman who abstained from meat and smoking. However, she was feeling exhausted, had bloody stools, and was losing weight. It was rather distressing to learn that she had bowel cancer because at first it was assumed to be stress or IBS. However, I assumed that after chemotherapy and surgery, she would quickly recover and be well again.
After a few weeks and more tests, I was surprised to learn that the cancer had progressed to the fourth stage. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that Deborah was bold and resolute; that was exactly her nature. She wanted to help others in addition to taking care of her own disease.
She felt compelled to raise awareness about cancer, its signs, and the value of listening to your body. She desired her children to live in a better world. Soon after learning she had cancer, she began writing a column for The Sun and launched the Bowelbabe blog.
Following that, she worked with The Sun to decrease the NHS screening age, co-hosted the well-liked podcast You, Me, and the Big C, encouraged others to get tested, and talked about poop whenever she could. The most significant thing in her life was her children. She wished for things to get better for them. She imagined a moment when cancer would not be a concern for them.
She consequently moved in with us. We had a great time together for seven weeks throughout our time with her. She organized movie evenings and hosted her 33-year-old brother Ben and his fiancée an impromptu engagement celebration. Prince William had even invited her over for tea after Buckingham Palace had declared her a dame.
It was an odd period, filled with love, grief, and joy in equal measure. It is something I will never forget. Most evenings, Deborah and I stayed up together since neither of us could sleep. Neither of us wanted her to wake up.
We had a lengthy conversation. I reassured her that she was resilient and vowed to support her children. Regaining my baby back was the feeling I had when I was my dying daughter’s child. Our affection for one another developed as we were unable to remain apart from one another.
When she died, I held her hand in mine. I’m relieved that she passed away peacefully after everything that she had gone through. After her death, for the first year, I was high on adrenaline. I tried my hardest to support Deborah’s husband, Seb, and their children.
I didn’t truly cope with my loss; instead, I stayed occupied to divert my attention from how awful things were. I was unable to leave the house due to severe panic episodes I experienced around the anniversary of her death.
I felt like everything had caught up to me and I was exhausted mentally and physically. I was prescribed antidepressants, even though at first I didn’t want to take them. However, looking at Deborah’s photos and chatting about her also makes me feel better.
At the start of this year, I felt better. Sarah turned forty years old last month, and my son Ben is getting married in April. Though we know Deborah would want us to savor these special days for her, we still miss her a much.
Even though Deborah is no longer with us, her legacy endures in her work raising money and awareness as well as in her family, particularly in her kids.