Kelly: the whirlwind who was the centre of our universe

OUR DAUGHTER KELLY by Linda and Martin Turner

KeLLY was our only child — and the love of our life. When she was born, the midwives said we were lucky — they predicted she was going to be a placid and easy-going baby and they were right.

She was always cheerful and found everything funny. We can’t remember a single toddler tantrum.

As she grew, Kelly always seemed older than her years; 11-going-on-21, 12-goingon 31. Outside the house she was very shy, maybe a little socially awkward, and later she was diagnosed with high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome. At home, though, she was anything but quiet.

She was very creative — our walls are covered with her paintings — and she was like a whirlwind when she was doing her art. The ideas spilled out of her.

You would think a grenade had gone off — there was paint everywhere, an explosion of colour. It was the same when she was cooking. She did an excellent spaghetti bolognese but there would be sauce up the walls, on the floor. You always knew our Kelly had been in the room.

She was bright. When she didn’t have homework, she’d set her own. She couldn’t understand pupils who didn’t want to study. Bullying was a problem because she wasn’t like the others.

She passed ten GCSes, which would have been an achievement in any case, but Kelly did most of her studying in the Royal Marsden hospital in London, where she was being treated for cancer.

She was diagnosed in 2015 and told she had two years to live. She was beside herself with grief. We all were.

her cancer was a very rare teenage one called Desmoplastic small round cell tumours. Only 20 other people in the world suffer from it and there is no specific drug treatment. She endured 28 rounds of chemotherapy as doctors tried to find the drugs that worked. none did.

Our hopes were raised when we heard of an experimental treatment in new York, so we tried to raise £1 million to send her there. But time ran out.

The way Kelly dealt with her cancer was awesome. We are so very proud of her. She supported us as much as we supported her. When we cried, she comforted us.

She did all her own research about her disease, so she knew what she was up against. Yet she never lost hope. She wanted to live so badly. When she was between treatments at home, she’d dance around the kitchen with us. She got up every day and she’d reach for her books and her paintbrushes, and she was determined not to give up. She planned for the future, whatever. She decided she wanted to become a radiographer, because when a patient said to her, ‘You don’t know what it is like to have cancer’, she could say: ‘Yes, I do.’

everyone who met our daughter was humbled. The singer Bryan Adams supported our fundraising. Ricky Wilson, from the Kaiser Chiefs, came to see her in hospital. So did the actor James McAvoy. A few days later he made a donation of £50,000 to Kelly’s fund.

In a funny way, she blossomed with the cancer. It made her less shy, less timid. She won a few awards for courage and she enjoyed going up on stage to collect them. even as she was fading away, she was becoming a beautiful and confident young woman.

Kelly died last november. A few weeks ago we buried her ashes on her 18th birthday. We are lost without her. She was our best friend, the centre of our little unit of three. We did everything together. One of the worst things now is looking in the rear-view mirror in the car and her not being there on the back seat.

But we know Kelly would want us to go on. Our fundraising target of £1 million is still in place — we’re almost halfway there — and the money will now go to the Institute of Cancer Research. her legacy will live on.

Kelly turner, born March 23, 2000, died november 6, 2017. See justgiving.com/kellyturnerfoundation2017