Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I looked into my son’s eyes and said ‘I’m sorry, Ethan, Mum’s died’
Moment a dad made Holly & Phil weep
PHILLIP Schofield and Holly Willoughby weep as TV presenter Simon Thomas explains how he broke the news of his wife’s death to their young son.
Simon lost Gemma in November, aged just 40, three days after she was diagnosed with leukaemia and had to break the news to eightyear-old Ethan.
Fighting back tears, he said: “I looked into his deep brown eyes and said, ‘Ethan, I’m really sorry they couldn’t make
Mummy better’.
“You can’t dress it up. ‘Mummy’s died’, I said. He collapsed on to the floor. I collapsed with him. I just held him. I’d never wish it on my worst enemy.”
As Simon continued his tragic account on
ITV’S This Morning, host Phillip noticed
Holly was crying and reached for tissues, dabbing his own eyes after handing her some.
Seeing her distress, Simon, 45, reached over to Holly, telling her: “It’s all right.”
Talking of the hours before Gemma’s death, the Sky Sports host said: “My heart was pounding. Ethan saw her twice that day. I didn’t tell Ethan she was going. I said, ‘Mummy is seriously ill’ and I held him to her ear a couple of times and he said he loved her and went to play with his cousins.”
Gemma had initially visited her doctor with a headache but it was not until her third visit in a week, and a dash to A&E, that she was diagnosed with the disease.
At the time Simon had been off work with depression. He said at first he felt furious with the GP, but accepts an earlier diagnosis by a few days would not have helped.
Simon said he fainted at the Royal Berkshire hospital, Reading, when she was given a 50/50 chance.
He is heartbroken that, because of the speed of her deterioration, he was unable to say goodbye properly.
“You hear of people being told they have weeks or months, you have those chances to talk about it, and at least to try to get your head around it and have the final conversations. I never had that.”
He said that when she died, he came out of the hospital and screamed at God: “Why have you left my boy without his mum?’ ”
Now he is trying to get his life back together and, when the time is right, would like to raise money for a charity in his wife’s name.