We honour our promise to Lydia
I stayed by her side My beautiful sister
34, struggling to walk, dread lodged in my gut.
And that feeling didn’t leave the following day as Stu and I paced the hospital corridors for four hours during her biopsy.
Then the doctor appeared. ‘Lydia has a glioblastoma. It’s serious,’ he said.
I remembered what Lyd had said – it was the deadly one we feared.
A fast-growing, aggressive cancer of the brain.
She’d need intensive chemotherapy, radiotherapy, but only 5% of glioblastoma patients survived more than five years.
Spotting me and Stu walking into recovery, Lyd was upbeat as usual. ‘Hi guys!’ she beamed.
Full of promises to be in the 5%. And her strength gave me strength, too.
I stayed with Lyd and Stu for two weeks, relieved to see her responding well to chemo, trying to live her life as normal.
In spring 2019, she and our cousin Rosie, then 38, organised a virtual challenge – from Wakefield to Houston.
Friends and family walked, swam, cycled or ran the 4,735 miles between them.
‘I feel great!’ Lyd told me in November 2019, during one of our regular Whatsapp chats.
She and Stu were finally taking their long overdue honeymoon – a cruise along the Panama Canal.
‘We’re going to have the time of our lives,’ she grinned.
And the good news kept coming. ‘My scans are clear,’ Lyd said in April 2020.
Hope surged, and we all ran out to buy Champagne to toast Lyd – one of the 5%.
The next day, we got a very different call.
‘They missed a tiny tumour on my brain stem,’ Lyd sobbed.
Further treatment was risky – the tumour was too far into her brain.
Hours earlier we’d celebrated – now, Lyd was being told to spend time with her family.
Within 24 hours, Lyd and Stu managed to fly to Yorkshire with their dog Pompey.
They moved in with me, as did Mum, with Dad visiting every day with his partner Linda, then 67.
We played board games and watched her favourite soaps on TV.
With Lyd getting sicker, we put her bed in the conservatory so she could see us all through the window.
‘Promise me you won’t let grief ruin your lives. I want you to be happy,’ Lyd told me and Mum.
We tearfully promised, even though I wasn’t sure I could keep it.
On 22 May 2020, three weeks after coming home, Lyd, 36, slipped away peacefully, her family surrounding her.
A month later, we said goodbye, with the service watched via Zoom by family around the world.
I sang Landslide by Fleetwood Mac and Stu gave a moving eulogy.
Since then, Rosie has raised an incredible £26,000 for Brain Tumour Research.
And I’ve spent every day trying to keep my promise.
I do my hair and nails, remembering how much she’d disapprove if I didn’t.
Often raise a glass of Lyd’s favourite cocktail – a French 75 – with Mum.
On 2 February 2023, it would have been Lydia’s 40th birthday – a milestone.
To celebrate her life, close family and friends gathered in London – it was such a moving day.
And this year, we’re looking to get all her friends from around the world together for an even bigger celebration of her life.
Because I’m still Lydia’s big sister, and honouring my promise to her is still my most important job.
lto raise money for Brain Tumour Research, please search ‘Lydia’s Wish’ on Justgiving
I still raise a glass to Lydia