A GRAN’S ENDLESS LOVE
A GRIEVING MUM IS RAISING HER GRANDCHILDREN AS HER OWN, AFTER HER THREE DAUGHTERS DIED IN SEPARATE TRAGEDIES
A MOTHER whose three daughters all died in separate tragedies is now bringing up their children as her own.
Samantha Dorricott, 44, has told of her triple heartache over the losses of Emilie, Abbie and Amy in a series of unconnected deaths.
Within just seven years Samantha suffered every parent’s worst nightmare – when her three daughters died in harrowing circumstances.
She is now bringing up her grandchildren Jenson, four, and Chantelle, three, because she has a “job to do”.
Samantha said: “My two beautiful grandchildren have both lost their mothers and I have to be here for them to protect them.
“I am determined to be the best grandma and mum to them that I can be. After all, I am all they have left.”
Samantha’s first heartache came in 2009 when her 15-year-old daughter Emilie died at a friend’s party.
The teenager, whose dream was to be a school teacher and travel the world, fell unconscious after experimenting with drugs and died outside a flat.
Samantha, of Treorchy, Rhondda, said: “The days that followed after her death were beyond unimaginable.
“I had done everything to protect my daughter. I tortured myself wondering if things could have turned out differently.”
The family were dealt another devastating blow three years later when Amy, 21, died.
Amy was mum to 11-month-old Jenson when she suffered two massive strokes.
Doctors said there was no hope for Amy, who was also found to have cancer in the bowel and liver, and her life support was turned off.
Samantha said: “Amy was my eldest and born with health problems. She was told it was dangerous to get pregnant.
“After she gave birth she suffered lots of infection and only had one lung working. But in spite of it all she adored being a mum to him and he loved her so much; they were inseparable.”
Samantha became the legal guardian to her grandson and was determined to keep hold of her last surviving daughter Abbie.
But in a tragic twist of fate Abbie, 19, left a chip pan on when she fell asleep and died from smoke inhalation in August 2016.
Samantha had been babysitting four-year-old Chantelle when she realised she hadn’t heard from Abbie and knew something was wrong.
Samantha said: “I raced round to her house and banged on the door. Then I saw the little black specks of soot on the windowsill.
“I looked through the letterbox and I could see it – thick black smoke.
Samantha called her partner Robert Davies, 37, who banged down the door and found Abbie slumped on the sofa inside. Abbie’s footprints had been in the carpet where she had tried to get out of the house.
Samantha is now bringing up her grandchildren with the help of her son Nathan, 18, and her partner Robert.
She said: “Jenson is so much like Amy – he is sweet and sensitive and he loves to be fussed and is always asking me to pull his socks up.
“Chantelle is a mini version of Abbie – she’s feisty and independent and bossy.”
Samantha’s three daughters are now buried together.