Amber's Race for Life

I never knew what cancer was until it was too late. At the age of 9, without knowing she was even ill, my mum got a phone call saying that my close friend Rhian's mum had died of cancer. Not even a year later I was sat down with my sisters to be told that my mum had the same illness. That's all I knew about it, it killed people, and I was not ready to lose my Mum. Since then she has been known as other-mother to Rhian, as that's the kind of loving mum she is. Luckily for me we were given 9 extra years which I am eternally thankful for. Yes there were hospital trips ever few years where the cancer tried to make its way back, but the cancer did not define her. Within those 9 years she got to take me prom dress shopping in ridiculously big dresses that we knew I would never wear (and later got to go to prom in our two door Peugeot 206...like every princess). We went to Scotland... even breaking down 400 miles from home and taking got knows how many AA trucks to get back is a good memory. Tigers, dreamcatchers, no shoes, Bon Jovi, Kiefer Sutherland, me and my sister, my dad and our dog Ben... That is my mum. I have done race for life before while mum was still here and if I could take anything back, it would be being disappointed about the pink to-to she spent so much time working on for me for the race. I know I hurt your feeling that day, on a day that should have been all about you, and for that I am sorry. One of the people most openly hurt the most by her passing was Kiera, who will be doing the race alongside me. Herself and my other sister Chloe and my Dad are my heroes. They make sure Mum is still here, whether through her naughty humour, no shoes (I'm looking at you Chloe) and being there to support anyone who needs it. We are not the family who have lost someone anymore. We are the family who have had the privilege to have known an amazing woman.