‘Happy tears’ for family at mom’s last Christmas
Cancer-stricken Tabitha Wegner fulfils final wish at hospital party
“Those are happy tears,” Maureen Wegner said, watching her weeping daughter Tabitha embrace her children in the midst of a Christmas party held Sunday before it’s too late.
This will be Tabitha’s last Christmas, her friends and family explained, and the party was her “last wish,” to have one last happy moment with her children. About 50 people attended the party held in an atrium at the Met campus of Windsor Regional Hospital. There were kids, relatives, friends and Santa, who all waited for porters to wheel in Tabitha in her hospital bed. For the last several months while in hospital, this party was all that she asked for.
“This is fantastic,” said Tabitha’s mom. “It’s all about the kids. Trust me, if she was in a better state, she’d be doing this for other kids too.”
It is the unfading and powerful love for her children Nevaeh Diamond, 12, and Gage Diamond, 11, that has kept her alive this long, friends said. Diagnosed almost three years ago with cervical cancer that spread to her lymph nodes, throughout her body and eventually her brain, she made headlines in January 2017 for planning her own funeral.
At the time, doctors gave her less than a year to live, but it’s been almost two years now for the 30-year-old.
“Her kids, she just keeps saying she’s fighting for her kids,” said her husband (they’re separated) Jeff Diamond. Though doctors have warned she might not make it to Christmas, don’t count her out, he said.
“She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. She’s been fighting for three years now.”
The children have been told the truth about their mom’s condition, he said. They visit the hospital regularly, probably three times a week. “It’s been ... upsetting because I don’t want to lose my mom, it’s hard,” said Nevaeh, a Grade 7 student at Corpus Christi Catholic Middle School who said her mom’s very funny and loving. “I think she’s a really strong woman because she fights through all the hurt.” Tabitha’s been in hospital for the last three months and won’t be getting out, her mother said. Though she had a really bad day Sunday, she insisted on attending the party that evening. She embraced friends and family and shared tears of mutual love.
“She’s happy to see all her friends, people who love her,” said her stepdad Tony Roberts. “It’s her spirit and the way she is,” her mother said. “She’s been like this right from the start. She never lets it get her down.” The party shows the love that Tabitha and her friends share, said Lisa Valente, who worked with Kim Klyn to raise money and in-kind donations for the children’s presents, including a coveted PlayStation 4. The children opened the many presents one-by-one, showing them off to their contented mother. “This is a full Christmas, we thought of everything,” Valente said. Valente said the situation is made sadder by the fact that many strangers have made cruel comments about her not being sick, that her claims of dying from cancer are just a way to gain donations to her GoFundMe account, created two years ago to help pay for her funeral. This despite the fact that Tabitha’s condition was confirmed to the Windsor Star by her oncologist back in 2017.
And who could take up a hospital bed for the last three months if she was faking it, Valente added. While many people didn’t believe her and were rude and ignorant, Tabitha just brushed them off, said her mother, who added Tabitha has the biggest heart in the world. “It’s heartbreaking for (her children),” she said. “This is going to be the last Christmas.”