I am a mother of daughters, a quartet of them. My third daughter, Neve, was very ill with brain cancer and she died recently. When she was diagnosed, in July 2020, I was catapulted from the birth and perinatal world, where I worked as an IBCLC, among other roles, into the palliative care and death and dying world.
I am here to write mostly about Neve. As she was dying, as she took her final breath, I told her that I would tell the world about her. I hope, through sharing her story and mine, that we can open conversations about illness, caring, dying, death and grief. I want to write to create connections and start discussions. I want people to realise that they are not as alone as they might feel. I hope Neve can be my companion in this, as I share her with the world.
I am also learning to paint Neve. It is my way of connecting with her, over her lifetime, as I paint her. I paint in her bedroom, which will forever be known as Neve’s room. My artwork is very much a work in progress. It is one of the many gifts that Neve left me with, as I would not have started painting, a year ago, had she not been so unwell.
I hope to continue Neve’s long standing tradition of ruffling feathers and building relationships. When I am not doing this, I am often cooking, baking, walking, running, learning how to mother teenagers or hanging out in the park with my youngest daughter. My writing will be my story and not that of my other daughters or my husband, as their stories belong to them.
To begin, I suggest starting here, where I introduce Neve.
