Gloria Hunniford's daughter, TV presenter Caron Keating, was 34 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Initially she was declared in the clear but the cancer came back, despite her attempts to fight it off with every therapy going. She died aged 41. This is Gloria's account of Caron's life. It is outstanding from the beginning, feels painfully truthful but is utterly absorbing. It does make you cry - endlessly. It is about the difficult bond between mothers and daughters and about what happens to a family when one of its members gets taken over by a disease.
'A beautiful read' Daily Record
Caron and I never talked about death - only about life. All during Caron's courageous seven-year battle with breast cancer, the child became the teacher as I watched in admiration, and sometimes desperation, the way she fought for life, to live in the 'now', having whatever treatment her oncology team recommended but, parallel to that, continuing her worldwide search for a cure or miracle to rid her body for ever of cancer. She just wanted to get on with 'living' instead of 'living her cancer'. She wanted to return to normal family life, the joy of looking after her gorgeous boys, Charlie and Gabriel, alongside her ever-supportive and loving husband Russ. The closest Caron came to discussing the possibility of death was to reiterate, time and time again, that she didn't want her boys to grow up without their mum.
Yes, of course she was angry and frustrated at times, racked with pain later and, no doubt, besieged by fear, particularly in the dark hours in the middle of the night when the mind races beyond all reason. However, all through that period of fighting her cancer she could always smile and her impish strident sense of humour constantly found its way to the surface. Despite the turmoil raging inside her, she made it easy for the family to be around her, and when we visited in Cornwall or, subsequently, in Byron Bay in Australia, she always had a busy itinerary of things lined up for us and places to go. So much so that we could hardly keep pace with her. She was always busy in mind and body, passionate about everything around her - constantly searching for a new challenge in life. Boy, did she face it!
As a mother who had loved and treasured my beautiful daughter from the moment of her birth, I was faced with the most heartbreaking helplessness at not being able to 'fix it'. The sticking plaster and the 'There, there. Mummy will kiss it better' routine suddenly wore as thin as a wafer. Yes, I could envelop Caron in my love as I'd always done, I could shop and cook for her, be supportive, help with the children, look for doctors and treatments and talk endlessly, but for the first time I couldn't take away the illness and soothe, as I had done hundreds of times in the past.
Nothing can prepare you for the second someone confirms, 'Your child has got cancer.' I remember thinking, No matter how well this story turns out, life will never be the same for Caron or the family ever again. Cancer patients tell me that although they have in essence beaten the condition and been declared 'clean', with every pain and ache the question comes: 'Is this it again - has it moved somewhere else to attack me once more?'
I was in the garden that day. Caron was resting after her first lumpectomy and at the back of my mind I had a niggle: 'I trust and pray everything is clear.' Nevertheless, I still thought, as Caron and the doctors had predicted, that it would turn out to be a milk lump. I was to relive that split second of confirmation from Russ many, many times. And what it does in one swift swoop, is to take away the carefree aspect of your life, because in your soul you just know there will be dark days ahead of doubt, fear and struggle.
I just couldn't absorb the reality. My beautiful, intelligent, feisty, loving daughter had been stricken with cancer. In my head I kept thinking, This doesn't happen to a thirty-three-year-old wife and mother, a young woman balancing a hugely successful career. My mother had died of breast cancer some eight years earlier at the age of seventy-two, and even though it was deeply sad to lose her and I was bereft, it was in the right order of life. If I could, I would have changed places with Caron to keep the natural order of the generations - after all, I had had a good innings. However, when Caron was first diagnosed the doctors were going for a complete cure, and even when the cancer had moved through her body to her bones, some six years later, we were still going for 'management'. Somehow, through her courage, Caron had clung to that hope of life and we clung with her. It's amazing how one can condition the mind to say, 'There's always hope, whatever the doctors predict.' Miracles do happen and new treatments are being developed all the time. Whatever the outcome, it's all you have: to live for the second and live every second of every day. Now that she is dead, I am still doing it. It is the only way I can seem to survive this. You have to have faith. Caron believed in angels. She believed that when they had visited they left a white feather. She said it was their calling card. I don't think I can ever accept that my daughter is no longer with me, I carry her in my heart. Like Caron's total conviction in angels I hold on to the belief that she is here, somewhere, next to me.
For more information please contact Clare Pollock on 020 7010 3354 / clare.pollock@uk.penguingroup.com
