Real life: How a bereaved mother learned to cope
Four years ago, Lorraine George’s son Rob died from leukaemia aged just 21. She tells Lucy Banwell how she has managed to carry on, inspired by her sports-mad boy
Clutching her son Rob’s hand, Lorraine George was living every mother's worst nightmare. Aged just 19, Rob had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia – a rare type of blood cancer.
When Rob had come home from his first year of university in June 2011, complaining of a high temperature, Lorraine and her husband Philip, 65, thought he’d simply been overdoing his student lifestyle – studying and partying.
But very quickly, Rob’s health seemed to deteriorate.‘He looked grey and sweaty,’ Lorraine recalls. ‘I’d never seen anything like it because he was normally so fit and energetic. As well as the temperature, he had a rash on his legs, his gums were bleeding and he said he felt terribly unwell.’
Realising there was something seriously wrong with their youngest son, they took him straight to hospital. And it was there that the family’s nightmare began.
‘The consultant told us they had 24 hours to try and turn Rob’s condition around, otherwise we’d lose him,’ Lorraine says. ‘We felt like the bottom of our world had fallen out. I remember holding Rob tight and saying, “We’re with you every step of the way,” but of course my heart was breaking.’
Doctors managed to stabilise Rob’s condition so that he was well enough to begin treatment. But this was just the beginning of a two-year battle, which saw Rob endure five agonising cycles of chemotherapy.
Watching her son suffer was particularly hard for Lorraine, who’d always been incredibly close to Rob – the youngest of her three boys.
‘Philip and I had always planned to have four children,’ explains Lorraine, who runs a dance and performing arts school in Colchester, Essex, ‘But when Rob was placed in my arms I knew three was enough. He was perfect and completed our family.’
As Rob grew, his talent for sport became evident. A keen cricketer, he played for his local Colchester team as well as for Loughborough University.
He also played the violin and saxophone but he loved to socialise most of all.
‘He was the life and
‘Rob was so full of life, a big bundle of bright energy. For him, I had to carry on and live life to the fullest’
soul of the party,’ Lorraine fondly remembers. ‘He had a wide circle of friends. Everybody loved Rob. He was such a happy, loving person.’
By November 2013, tragically all treatment options had been exhausted and there was nothing more that doctors could do. The family found a hospice just two miles from their home, and Lorraine had a bed in Rob’s room, with a reclining chair for Philip, so that they could both be with him around the clock.
‘At one point, when we knew he didn’t have long left, Rob sat bolt upright in bed, looked my husband straight in the face and said, “Be happy.” After that he lay back down and closed his eyes. Those were his last words.’ Lorraine says.
Just 36 hours later in December 2013, Rob, then 21, passed away in his mum’s arms.
‘I was cuddling him and he turned to me and breathed his last breath into my face,’ she adds. ‘It was as if he breathed his life into me and then he was gone. There was some relief because he was no longer in pain, but obviously we all were, and still are, absolutely heartbroken.
‘The natural reaction after a loss like this is to pull up the drawbridge and sit in the corner and weep. But I couldn’t let myself do that. Rob was so full of life, a big bundle of bright energy. For him, I had to carry on and live life to the fullest just as he had.’
Determined to honour their son’s memory, Lorraine and Philip set up The Rob George Foundation – a charity providing financial and practical support for young
people with life-threatening illnesses, and young people in the world of sports and performing arts. Before his death, Rob had set the aims for the foundation himself.
A year after Rob died, Lorraine, Philip and 15 of their friends cycled 1,400 miles from John O’Groats to Land’s End, raising £56,000 for the foundation. They have also completed a charity ride from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon and to date, with the help of family, friends and supporters, they’ve raised over £700,000.
‘Rob’s Foundation is a way of channelling our grief,’ says Lorraine. ‘The idea of Rob being totally gone is too hard to bear, so I like to think he lives on in me in some way.
‘We discussed the idea of the charity with Rob before he died and he loved the idea. All the charity events we plan are fun things that Rob would’ve loved to have done himself. It’s a way of keeping his memory alive while helping other people.
‘I’m doing all of this for Rob. His life was tragically cut short and I just hope by sharing his story it encourages everyone to make every moment count. For heaven’s sake, take life by the scruff of the neck and live it! Life is precious and it can pass you by all too quickly.’
For more information, visit therobgeorgefoundation.org. Lorraine has also written End to End Ð With Love x, which is available on Amazon, £15.99