DEBORAH James has said she will “miss every chance that I could have had” with her children, but knows that they “are going to be fine”.
The mum-of-two is receiving hospice care for incurable bowel cancer and has raised almost £3.5 million on bowelbabe.org as a legacy.
“You always want to know as a mother, are your kids going to be ok? And my kids are going to be fine,” Deborah said in a tearful interview with BBC Breakfast.
“But it doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna miss every chance that I could have had with them.”
She also said on 5 Live on Tuesday: “The more I tell them they are going to be ok, the more I tell myself they are going to be ok, I know they are surrounded by love.”
Deborah has expressed her hopes that her kids – Eliose, 12, and Hugo, 14 – will remember her after her death, due to their age.
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“But [they are] still very young, so my image will fade and they will have to rely on videos or photos”, she told The Times.
Trending In The News columnist, 40, who was diagnosed at the age of 35, revealed earlier this week her body is too weak to carry on.
The former deputy headteacher has shared how awful it was to tell her children she was stopping active treatment.
In heartbreaking interviews from her parents home in Woking, Deborah has spoken of her wishes for her final moments, and hopes for her children in the future.
She revealed she wants to be part of her kids’ wedding days and birthday through notes she’ll leave for them to open, which will also include advice on first dates.
Deborah said: “It’s hard to work out what to do: you don’t want to rip off the Band-Aid every birthday and ruin it for them.
“But at the same time I want them to have letters at milestones, and funny messages.”
The mum wrote her final column for Trending In The News that she has made her kids memory boxes.
She wrote: “I’ve gone into mental overdrive and with the help of my husband, Seb, we have made sure that the kids have memory boxes – we’ve bought them gifts for certain key future birthdays.
“I do not want to die – I can’t get my head around the idea that I will not see my kids’ weddings or see them grow up – that I will no longer be a part of life that I love so much.”
For the past five years, the former teacher has raised awareness of her disease and its symptoms, becoming a national treasure.
And as her last wish, she urged people to donate to the Bowel Babe Fund, which last night received support from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
- Donate to bowelbabe.org here
Deborah said she and her children, husband Seb, brothers, sisters and other family are all together “having sleepovers, doing loads of talking” and spending time in the sunshine.
She said: “What I desire is simple things, which is holding my husband’s hand, curling up and watching movies with my daughter, telling them both that I love them, that I love them.
“Just spending time watching the people I love in awe, to just know that they are ok.”
Yesterday Deborah moved her podcast producer Milk Holt to tears as she signed off with her final poignant episode, saying “that’s it from me”.
Mike struggled to contain his emotion as Deborah said she was comforted by the thought she would be with Rachel Bland – her co-host on the podcast who tragically died in 2018.
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In her final episode of her BBC podcast titled You, Me and the Big C: Putting the can in cancer, she told Mike: : “We’ll see each other again, somewhere, somehow, dancing.
“And until then please, please just enjoy life because it is so precious. All I want right now is more time and more life.”
