The Christmas that changed me was the one my daughter, Posy, died. Christmas for her was always special. The food preparation, the decorating the house, the baking of the cake, which was traditionally her task. Everyone in the family had their own speciality and everything bar one dish was ready when she was rushed to hospital with suspected kidney failure. The kidney failure turned out to be blood cancer, which none of us, including Posy, knew she had. In the early hours of Christmas Eve 2002, she and her unborn baby died.
We came out of St James’s hospital in Leeds to a cruelly blue sky and a house full of festive food and wine ready for our traditional Polish celebration. We could have cancelled, but we didn’t. Posy loved a party, so we ate and we drank and we toasted her and her child, whom we’d named Bod.
That decision coloured everything that followed. Christmas could have become a time of mourning and silence; it hasn’t. It’s joyful and filled with family and friends. I won’t say I’m not fearful for my other children, and grandchildren, or less willing to take risks.
I wish I could say that I’ve done challenging and dramatic things to raise money and awareness of the disease that took her life, but I have learned to be brave and to keep going. To take on board Posy’s can-do attitude and above all, because life is fleeting, to celebrate even in the worst of times.
Misha Herwin
Stoke-on-Trent
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
