The moment my daughter died, I was holding her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I felt her slip away. I felt something in me shatter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For five and a half years I watched bowel cancer steal pieces of her life, her body, her future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was only 40. Her children were only teenagers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the weight of Deborah\u2019s hand in mine, growing lighter as her breathing slowed, each exhale a goodbye to the life she had fought so fiercely to keep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that small, quiet room, the machines hummed, but her battle was finally over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I whispered that it was all right to let go, even though every part of me wanted to scream for her to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I watch Hugo and Eloise navigate a world that no longer has their mother in it, and I see Deborah in every brave smile they force, every tear they try to hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tell them their mum did not lose; she endured. She turned pain into purpose, fear into fierce love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I brought her into this world and held her as she left it, and in that circle of life and loss, I found a different kind of strength: to keep her story alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The moment my daughter died, I was holding her hand. I felt her slip away. I felt something in me shatter. For five and a half years I watched bowel cancer steal pieces of her life, her body, her future. She was only 40. Her children were only teenagers. I remember the weight of Deborah\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16801,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16800\/revisions\/16801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}