History

My daughter had a bowel infection. And I had to get her to the doctor on Sunday evening. While while we were sitting in the doctor’s office, I saw this big snakes and ladders game. And I thought “Yes!” That’s our life. It goes up, there is ladders. And a whole lot of blinkin snakes. You never know when they are going to zip out. That encapsulates the whole thing.

THREE BEARS. That is what is left of our family

We decided to tell them the day we found out that their father was terminal. We’d planned to hold over until the school holidays. But we thought there’d be a shift in the thinking in the house and they would sense it. When adults have disturbing news, they rally support. The phone goes more, flowers arrive, cooking arrives. And so we thought we’d tell them straight away. It’s something you’ve never done before as a parent. You watch your children outside and you see their innocence as they jump on the trampoline. And you think in ten minutes time, I’m about to change their world. So we sat them down and it was awful and we all cried. The pain of the children is the worst thing about this cancer for us. It’s not my loss as a wife, but the children not having their father is the awful thing.