The Daily Telegraph - Features
Deborah James’s cancer fundraising as death looms is heart-rendingly poignant
What constitutes a good death? I have a feeling the elements are much the same as a good life; love, family, connection, gratitude despite the terrible vagaries of fate. I’m surely not the only one looking at the magnificent Deborah James as she prepares to die and experiencing a raft of emotions, some of which are hard to pinpoint much less describe.
The mother- of-two and You, Me and the Big C podcast host, 40, announced earlier this week that her active treatment was stopping as she moves to hospice at home care.
Deborah was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer in 2016 and has documented her experience using the jaunty moniker @BowelBabe. There has been laughter as well as tears but her courage has been unflinching.
“I’m sleeping most of the days, and most things I took for granted are pipe dreams. I know we have left no stone unturned,” she wrote to her legion of followers this week. The former deputy head teacher also announced the creation of the Bowelbabe Fund for cancer research, which she hoped would raise £250,000 through everyone “buying” her a gin and tonic.
At the time of writing, the total stands at more than £3.6 million.
She was, she said “blown away” by the generosity and felt “utterly loved”. Such grace, thankfulness, a woman determined to wring joy from her every last moment, however terrifying.
Deborah’s son Hugo is 14. Her daughter Eloise is 12. She has documented the heartrendingly difficult yet necessary conversations they have had. Her banker husband, Sebastien, has been instructed to remarry as long as it’s not to “a bimbo”.
With characteristic pragmatism, she has planned not only her funeral but her death; the family have moved to her parents’ house in Woking so the children won’t have to deal with distressing memories of her dying in their London home.
Deborah wants to pass away outside, on the lawn, ideally sipping champagne amid the gentle hubbub of family, hugging her children one last time. Truthfully, wouldn’t we all? But at 90 not at 40. She is being taken much too soon.
In the final episode of her podcast she admitted that, even after five years, knowing she is now nearing the end is “still shocking”.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have said their thoughts are with her and her family, after donating an undisclosed amount to her fund. A kindness she will no doubt appreciate.
Her legacy will live on thanks to her extraordinary public profile and the money she has raised – but to those who know her and love her this is an out-and- out tragedy.
“I would give my cancer up in a second just to have a normal life again,” she has said. “But to be able to do it and feel like you’ve had an impact is kind of one of the best feelings you can have.”
All the rest of us can do to honour her is donate, remember and embrace her urgent exhortation to truly live before we die: “Please, please just enjoy life because it’s so precious.”
ponder the implications of a job title that combines the term “civil” and “servant”?
As far as work is concerned, there is no room for ambiguity. I should have thought the meaning is blindingly, bleedingly obvious; work is where you go to do what you have to do for the tax payers who employ you. End of. See you all Monday.