Stories
Voice of an angel
My girl lived and died for music...
A beautiful voice rose above the sound of a guitar, floating over the hospital beds. ‘You got the love I need to see me through,' my daughter Natalie, 18, sang.
The music brought a tear to my eye. Ever since Natalie had been diagnosed with cancer, the Florence and the Machine song had held a special significance for us. And now, as she crooned along to it with her schoolmates crowded around her hospital bed, I prayed that we would get our happy ending.
As a single mum, my life centred around Natalie and her 12-year-old sis Kayleigh.
But our world had been turned upside down two years before when Natalie had found a two-inch lump on the bottom of her left shoulder blade. I'd hoped against hope it would be something and nothing. But after an MRI scan, she'd been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
Despite six months of chemo, the tumour hadn't shrunk, and she'd had to have her shoulder blade removed.
I'd tried to keep life as normal as possible as she'd gone back and forth to hospital.
The following year Natalie had buzzed with excitement as her high school prom approached. But as she'd pulled the lovely white silk dress she'd bought months before out of the wardrobe, she'd frowned.
‘It won't fit,' she'd said sadly. The steroids she'd been put on had made her bloat from a size 6 to a size 14.
So me and Kayleigh had taken her shopping for a new black and silver gown.
‘Nothing can keep me down now...!' she'd grinned. giving us a twirl. ‘This dress is perfect!'
We'd all hoped that it would be the turning point. But a year later, the cancer had returned at the bottom of
her spine.
‘There's a strong chance she won't make it,' her doctor had told me.
‘Don't tell her,' I'd begged. ‘She has to keep fighting.' My beautiful girl had always, always battled against this cancer and stayed positive. Perhaps a miracle would happen.
So she kept fighting, and used as her inspiration the one thing that kept her going - music. Seeing her performing with her band, even though it was only in the hospital ward during visiting time, brought tears to my eyes. She should have been on stage.
Sitting in her hospital bed, Natalie had a huge smile. She was the lead singer in her school rock band Tainted Dawn. ‘Just because I'm not well enough to make band practise, doesn't mean I can't sing any more.'
Band practise had come to her!
‘She sounds as fab as ever,' said her friend Louise Clifford, 19.
Over those next months, doctors gave Natalie radiotherapy to blast the cancer. Soon, she was in so much pain, she could barely move and, with the radiotherapy being directed into her spine, she had to use a wheelchair. But she still sang.
And each time her friends said goodbye, she was filled with a new determination. ‘I'll fight and I'll get out of this wheelchair, Mum.'
‘I know you will, love...' I smiled, willing her on. But all the time the doctor's words haunted me: ‘There's a strong chance she won't make it.'
Kayleigh would push her big sis around all the shops in town. And, remarkably, after weeks of physiotherapy, my brave girl was back on her feet!
To celebrate her 19th birthday, we hired a massive limo to take her and her friends to a karaoke party we'd arranged in Glasgow. Seeing all her mates dressed up in ball gowns and suits made her so happy.
‘I'm going to live life for the moment,' she told me. I nodded, proud, knowing that I'd made the right decision to keep her prognosis from her.
That night she even went up on stage and wowed us by singing Call Me by Evanescence. Natalie never gave up on her future, and started a college course in business management of music.
Six months later, she spent a day with her idols Florence and the Machine at the Royal Albert Hall as part of a Teenage Cancer Trust event. ‘I love singing and performing...!' she excitedly told the lead singer Florence Welch, bubbling with joy.
But, if I'm honest, I think Natalie knew deep down she'd never be free of the cancer. Sometimes I'd walk past her room and hear her crying. ‘Why me, Mum? Why is this happening to me?' she sobbed.
‘Don't be sad,' I hushed, climbing into bed next to her, hugging her close. I'd have done anything to swap places with her.
Desperate to make her smile, I invited her friends over for movie nights every weekend.
A year later though, my worst fears came true. The pain running down her legs and spine came back.
‘The cancer has spread into the next vertebrae,' a consultant confirmed.
Natalie fought for nine more months, but her body started shutting down. She was losing weight too, disappearing before my eyes. One day, she struggled to sit up in bed. ‘Mum, I don't know what to do now.'
‘You don't have to do anything, just let Mummy do everything now,' I said, fighting tears. She drifted back to sleep. She'd fought as much as she could. Now she deserved to rest.
Two days later, she finally slipped away. The grief was overwhelming. ‘Be at peace now, Angel,' I wept.
Me and Kayleigh were absolutely broken, but I somehow found the strength to take Natalie's prom dress out of the back of the wardrobe. It would be a perfect fit now. ‘You'll finally get to wear it,' I whispered.
More than 100 people turned up for her funeral. It was so moving to see all of her friends singing along to Remember Me by Journey.
I wanted her back with every fibre of my body. But there was some comfort the following year when Natalie's school friend Louise came to see me. ‘I miss Natalie so, so much,' she said. ‘I've painted a portrait of her.'
‘It's beautiful,' I croaked. It looked so much like her.
Louise explained she'd entered it in a competition to be on the cover of a vinyl single being released by Florence and the Machine. Money from the sale would be going to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Over the next few weeks, 50,000 people voted for the painting online. I was ecstatic when it won.
I can't wait to buy the single for myself. It's the perfect way to keep Natalie's memory alive. She lived for music, and now she really is a part of it.
Heather Roberts, 43, Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire
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