“I brought my daughter into the world and took her out of it.”

As I held Deborah’s hand as she took her last breath, I was both sad and relieved. My beautiful whirlwind of a girl was gone, and so was her pain.

It’s hard to be a mom to a dead child every day, but tomorrow is especially hard.

Even though one of my children has died, I’ll always be a mom of three. But today, I’m thinking about my 16-year-old and 14-year-old grandchildren, Hugo and Eloise, who have lost their wonderful mother.

It’s not okay for them to send her a card or gift or just let her hug them.
Today, like every day for the past 21 months, all I can do is love them and be there for them.

Five and a half years after being told she had bowel cancer, my oldest daughter, Dame Deborah James, died. She was 40 years old.

It’s still hard to believe that the world has gone on without her. She was such a force of nature from the time she was a little girl.

Deborah was diagnosed in December 2016, when she was 35 years old and had two kids, ages 9 and 7.

She was a healthy, active young woman who didn’t smoke or eat meat. But she was losing weight, having bloody stools, and feeling tired.

At first, it was thought to be stress or IBS, so hearing that she had bowel cancer was very upsetting.

But I thought she would have surgery and chemotherapy and then be fine again soon.

There were more tests and a few weeks passed before I was shocked to hear that the cancer was in its fourth stage.

Deborah was brave and determined, which didn’t surprise me at all; that was just how she was.

She didn’t just want to deal with her own illness; she also wanted to help other people.