A wonderful life
Inspirational grandmother reveals her last wish... she is praying for a peaceful end
HER STORY captivated viewers when she was granted a dying wish to sing a duet with Tommy Fleming on TV last year.
Since then, terminally-ill mother of two, Anne Herlihy from Charleville in Cork has been busy fulfilling the remaining items on her first ‘bucket list’ – except one.
Anne explains that the final wish on her list may be out of her hands.
‘I don’t want to sound sad, but the final thing on my bucket list is to die a peaceful, painless death,’ she said last night. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to achieve this but I pray I will.’
Anne, 54, features this week in RTÉ’s Liveline Callback after she first contacted the show about an insurance issue last summer.
She then told how, when given her terminal diagnosis in September 2014, she created a
‘Life-enhancing and profound piece of radio’
bucket list of things to do before she dies. Graham Norton tweeted that the interview was ‘one of the most life-enhancing and profound pieces of radio’ he’d ever heard.
Anne had orginally phoned Joe Duffy to say her travel insurance was €1,200 for a four-day trip because she had been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.
She then revealed her bucket list. She wanted to renew her marriage vows, to do a flying lesson, driving lesson and learn to sing Both Sides Now.
The latter was fulfilled spectacularly when she appeared on Saturday Night with Miriam singing alongside her hero, Tommy Fleming, last August
Since then, she has also taken her driving lesson – a hair-raising experience. She has now abandoned plans for her flying lesson, saying the driving lesson was flying and driving all in one.
Anne, who is now almost three years on from her original diagnosis, is one of a handful of Irish women taking part in a trial for a new drug called Orlaparib. She feels well at the moment and is taking each day as it comes. ‘It sounds strange but I am enjoying life and savouring every bit of it. What’s the worst that can happen? It already has happened. I see the world in a different light. I am grateful for everything I have: my husband, my children and my lovely grandchildren. I’ve been very lucky.’
Anne says she has another wish she wants fulfilled. ‘I want a family portrait – all of us together in one picture. We had one taken at the wedding but it didn’t turn out.’
It’s something she may add to a brand new bucket list.
‘I’m in the care of the Marymount hospital and I told them I’d finished my list. They said: “No, Anne, make another list. That list has kept you going this last year. Make another that will get you through the next year.” So I’m going to make another list. I don’t know what will be on it except my final wish... which is for a good death.’