I LOOK TO THE SKY AND THINK OF HER….
When Trisha Loncraine’s daughter Rebecca overcame cancer, she took to the skies and learnt to fly a glider. She was writing a book about her passion when illness struck again… and it was left to Trisha to complete Rebecca’s inspiring story
A mother remembers her daughter
Every summer, my husband Tony and I spend time in France with a group of friends we have known all our married life. We spend sunny days and warm clear nights reminiscing, eating, drinking, squabbling and teasing each other like siblings. On our trip in 2009, a phone call from our only child, Rebecca, then 34, from her home in Oxford, changed our lives. Bec asked quite casually if I would go with her to the hospital a few days after we returned from France. I agreed and thought no more than briefly about it.
At the hospital, the prodding led to a scan, which led to a needle, led to more waiting and, finally, to a meeting with a young doctor who said she was so sorry. Breast cancer was not mentioned, but we knew. I was shocked and speechless. It had never occurred to me that something was
seriously wrong. Bec left the room to take a call from her partner. Then the tears came – I kept saying ‘it should be me’ as the doctor tried to comfort me. We gathered all she needed from her rented house and Bec moved back into her childhood room at our farm in the Welsh Black Mountains.
Bec was on the very jumping off point of her writing career, with her first major book about to be published. But on the day it was launched, our lovely daughter was in a
chemotherapy unit having bright red poison injected into her veins. That day, as for every other treatment, Tony and I sat beside her drinking coffee, chatting, working on crosswords together, reading clues out loud so she could help and struggled inwardly, as outwardly we did all we could to support her and each other. Bec closed down. She would see nobody, speak to nobody and her relationship broke down. She once said to me, ‘Mum, you have no idea how much I have lost’, which is a devastating thing for a mother to hear. We feel we are supposed to guard our children, keep them safe, cherish them, make them better, give them the strength and independence to go out into the world. Yet here I was, unable to reach my adored daughter. She felt she had lost her future, her security, her plans and her dreams.
‘The only thing that really matters in the end is love’ REBECCA LONCRAINE
Over the next 18 months we travelled back and forth from Wales to Oxford, and I made endless porridge and chicken soup and anything else she could eat. We did all we could to help Bec through periods of deep sadness and utter exhaustion. She drew strength from watching the wildlife on the farm, and we had happy times, too, of play whenever it was possible, of gentle walks down the farm, which led to long, winding conversations while we spied on the birds nesting in the sheds.
By spring 2011, the treatment was over, and Bec began walking herself well with friends. One day, they went to a local gliding club. The thought of flying had terrified her, but she bought a voucher to glide and was determined to use it. This amazed me – but she loved it. We were thrilled as we watched her transform with every flight, from the pale, wraithlike woman she had been, to a glowing person longing to get up in the morning, full of excitement, determination and hope.
I can understand the anxiety that a parent might feel at their offspring deciding to take up such a tricky pastime, but we just felt pure joy as our daughter emerged again. Bec was rebuilding her life and, by facing and conquering her fear of flying, she seemed to have found the confidence to start anew, regaining some of what she had lost. She loved gliding over the Black Mountains with her instructor, Bo. And, somewhere up high in that beautiful blue yonder, she and Bo became an item.
To my utter delight, Bec began writing again. Finally, her chuckle and enthusiasm were back. She began to work on a book about her illness and flying, which she was going to call Skybound. When the flying season in Wales ended in October, Bec was offered a writing residency in New Zealand, where Bo went to teach throughout the British winter. She spent four happy months there, learning more about flying. When we went out for a holiday, she was full of bubble and bounce. She came home for a while and then went off to Nepal to paraglide with vultures in the Himalayas. Tony and I were so relieved.
When Bec came back home, she found a house close to ours. She turned it into a lovely creative space, complete with big windows in her attic conversion looking out on to the mountains, where she wrote and wrote. We felt very proud of her, so delighted and inspired by her. And
Skybound was emerging. In July 2015, she took up a residency in Scotland where she hoped to finish the book. Strangely, we were in France again with our friends when another worrying phone call about her health made me tell her to come home. We rushed back to meet her in Wales. Tests proved that the cancer had returned in her abdomen. The familiar routine began again: operation, chemo, radiotherapy, more chemo… Bec closed down again, putting her all into staying alive.
She gave Tony and I the first part of Skybound. We both read it, loved it and felt even more proud of her. It’s incredibly moving, loving, well written, full of wonderful descriptions and amazing details, often of things we hardly remembered, and full of life and inspiration.
Bec moved back into her bedroom at the farm, where we were able to take care of her. I wrote updates to send to family and friends all over the world. Their support in the form of cards, thoughtful little gifts, emails and outpouring of love for her was what kept her going. She told the doctors that she was only going through with the treatment for those she loved, and because of them she would not give up.
This went on for 14 hard months before, heartbreakingly, Bec died at home in September 2016, aged 42, with Tony, me and her partner Bo around her. It remains the saddest moment in any of our lives, even though we knew it was right – she needed to rest. The district nurse and I washed her, put her into her favourite clothes, a lovely scarf and surrounded her with candles. My brother and his wife brought our mother to see her, and many friends came to hold us and wish her farewell. She was so right when she’d said, ‘Mum, whatever happens it will be all right. The only thing that really matters in the end is love.’ So true, my darling daughter, but it will take time to adjust to the cruel absence of you.
Bec’s spirit is in every square inch of the farm and, every time I look up into the sky or see a thermalling bird, I smile with the memory of her. She is deep within me, a dear memory that wanders freely through our conversations, and I am so grateful for the time we had with her. Her editor Sophie and I had promised her that we would see Skybound published, and it was a wonderful gift for me to be able to edit, with Sophie’s guidance, her beautiful book. It meant so much to Bec that the book should go out into the world and I am tremendously proud of it. I really hope it makes such a splash that her spirit will know how very much she is missed.