Gloria Learns to live again

When Gloria Hunniford lost her daughter Caron Keating to breast cancer 18 months ago she says she 'lost herself as well'. She talks to Hannah Stephenson about the terrible agony of her grief, and the slow process of learning to carry on without her...

Caron Keating believed in angels. The TV presenter, who died last year from breast cancer aged 41, said that when angels visited they left a white feather as their calling card. Just the other day, her mother, the broadcaster Gloria Hunniford, was entertaining her two grandsons, Caron's children, at her indoor pool in Sevenoaks, Kent, when she noticed an exquisite white, perfectly dry feather at the edge of the pool. Gloria knew then, she says, that Caron was there watching over them.

It's now 18 months since Gloria's world fell apart when her beloved daughter slipped away at her mother's home surrounded by her family, after battling breast cancer for seven years, which had spread to her bones. Tears are never far away as Gloria, 65, recalls those terrible last moments when her daughter died, the disbelief, the agony, the raw grief of it all.

"What is difficult is I lost Caron, but I lost myself as well," she says quietly, taking a moment to compose herself. "I had always regarded myself as a happy-go-lucky, cheery, jolly person. I had beautiful children, wonderful grandchildren, a job that I liked and a husband whom I love, and then this happens and you just think, where has the person I've lived with for all these years gone to?

"What you have to do is to try and claw some part of yourself back. It's like inching your way forward and getting back a bit of normality, whatever that may be. And there does come a point when you say in the midst of all this, I really have to sit back and fully appreciate who else and what else I have in my life. To use the old cliché, you have to count your blessings on what you have." She has two sons, Michael and Paul, who were also grieving for their sister, she reflects. "That was a defining moment for me. In my vulnerable state, I couldn't help but think of my loss but actually my sons had lost their sister and were looking at a mother who was grieving all the time. That made me sit up and think.

"The year after Caron's death was a year of dreaded first anniversaries for Gloria - the anniversary of Caron's death, in April, her birthday and Mothers Day. "I didn't know how I was going to get through Mothers Day. If I could have run away for that day I would have, but I knew that my boys would want to be there, particularly that year.

"From dreading it, my two wonderful sons arrived at the front door with bags of food. They cooked the most wonderful dinner. They had put in so much thought and effort that I ended up having a lovely day."

"The one thing we really shared was laughter. I miss all that sharing of conversation, the shopping, the being together and talking. She was the girl I loved talking to most."

Gloria tried to turn the anniversaries into positives. She and Caron's widower, Russ Lindsay, launched the Caron Keating Foundation, which raises money for cancer charities, on Caron's first birthday after her death. The pain of the immense loss doesn't go away, but you learn to live in and around it, Gloria reflects. "When I lost Caron I thought I would never laugh again. Of course, you learn to laugh again. Now, I can laugh at some of the things that amused me about Caron. The one thing we really shared was laughter. I miss all that sharing of conversation, the shopping, the being together and talking. She was the girl I loved talking to most.

"While at the beginning all I experienced was loss and separation, I now find that I have a stronger sense of her being with me. I can talk about those funny times more easily now."

She has a montage of photographs of Caron on her landing at home, which at one point she couldn't bear to look at for fear of bursting into tears. Now, she says, she has almost reached the stage where she can say, 'Morning Caron' to the pictures and smile.

Caron was just 33, with a promising TV career, a happy marriage and two young sons when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She endured both orthodox treatments including a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, as well as a host of alternative therapies including body electronics, colonic irrigation, sound healing, crystal healing, poultices and fasting. She had headed for Byron Bay in Australia, the alternative therapy capital of the world, full of spiritualists, psychics, hippies and healers, and a variety of other unconventional practitioners. Caron tried them all. Gloria thought some of them were cranks, but now feels that overall Australia was good for Caron. "Although she tried some pretty wacky stuff, in terms of healers. Some healers are very good but there are some dangerous people in the healing field."

In the end, though, Caron came home. After taking a turn for the worse at a clinic in Switzerland, Russ drove her the long journey home to her mum's house, where her family was waiting for her. She died on April 13 last year. Gloria says that despite the cancer spreading to Caron's bones and causing her intense pain, she lived her life as fully as was humanly possible. "She was always on the go, literally before the day she died. She was always in and out of restaurants, shopping, she never lost her great appetite for life. Our relationship was joyous to have and I have it with my sons as well, but it's part of the Irish culture. Irrespective of any job I've had, I've always regarded myself as just Mum. Hardly a day goes by when I don't speak to my children."

Gloria misses their fun-filled shopping trips although she never really enjoyed shopping unless she was with her daughter, who was an avid shopper. "I only really liked shopping with Caron because we had such fun. I loved the way she would say, 'No, too mumsy,' and drag something else out for me. I don't have that in my life now. My husband Stephen and I were having coffee outside on the pavement at a little cafe recently and I looked across at the next table and there was a lovely young girl with her mum, who was balancing a baby on her knee. "I said to Stephen, 'You see that scenario? I'm really envious of that'. Sometimes when I see a mother and daughter just having a coffee and gossiping, I feel like going over to them and saying, 'You treasure this because this is more special than you think'."

Gloria has now written a tribute to Caron, Next To You, which charts her daughter's brave battle against the disease, the strength of the motherdaughter bond and their innermost feelings over those seven years. She has written it, she says, to give her grandsons, Charlie, 11, and eightyear- old Gabriel, a chronicle of their mother's life for when they are older. "I wanted them to be able to learn about how much she struggled to stay alive for them," says Gloria.

"Sometimes when I see a mother and daughter just having a coffee and gossiping, I feel like going over to them and saying, 'You treasure this because this is more special than you think'."

Russ discovered pages of Caron's own writing on her computer after she died, which revealed her own feelings about her life and her illness. Extracts from these diaries are interwoven into the book alongside Gloria's own recollections. "I feel I've completed what she started out to do. It became very clear from reading her notes how much she wanted to write. Although writing the book was devastating at times, it was also strangely cathartic, because you have that aspect of avoiding nothing and facing everything. And I hope it will be helpful to other people who find it difficult to verbalise their innermost feelings."

Caron's death made Gloria realise how precious life is, she says. "Every second counts. We were brought up with the Ulster work ethic and in a way that has been my saviour. I don't want to give up my work. And thank God for it because if I hadn't had it, I might have been a real sorry mess." She has also, unwittingly, found comfort among strangers who are kindred spirits. "I met a woman in the street recently. We were just putting money in the meter. She said, 'I know how you feel, I lost my son five years ago.' Here was this perfect stranger and we stood in the street, told each other the deepest and most personal things, said goodbye and walked away. It's a club I would rather not belong to, but it's amazing what a comfort it is because people do understand."

Caron's death has not lessened Gloria's faith and her belief in God remains as strong as ever. "It would be easy to become angry but my faith kept me going through those seven years. Of course I've asked myself a million times, why did it have to be Caron? I remember thinking why was Bob Wilson's daughter taken away, why was Helen Rollason taken away?

"My friend James Galway said to me, 'Maybe you just don't know the reason yet'. Maybe he's right."

Next To You, by Gloria Hunniford, is published by Michael Joseph/Penguin, priced £17.99