Deborah’s fingers went cold in my hand as her breathing faded, and in that moment I knew: I had brought my daughter into this world… and I had just watched her leave it. Grief crashed through me, tangled with a guilty, aching relief that her agony was finally over. For five and a half years, bowel cancer ravaged her vibrant body, stealing her laughter, her energy, her future. She was only 40. A mother of two beautiful teenagers, Hugo and Eloise, who still needed her more than they could ever say. I had no words to give them, only arms to hold them as their world shattered. Because how do you explain to a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old that their mother’s brave fight is over, that love wasn’t enough to save.

I still feel the weight of her hand in mine, even though she’s gone. The room was unbearably quiet when the machines stopped and the nurses stepped back, leaving just the three of us: a mother holding her dying child, and a daughter slipping somewhere I couldn’t follow. I whispered that it was all right to let go, that she didn’t have to be brave anymore. That lie broke my heart, because Deborah had always been brave for everyone else.

Now I watch Hugo and Eloise navigate a world without her. Their grief comes in waves: slammed doors, sudden tears, silent dinners. I tell them stories about their mum before the cancer, when her laugh filled every corner of a room. We speak her name often, not as a wound, but as a promise. She is gone from our sight, but not from our days. Love, I’m learning, does not end; it simply changes shape.