A touching moment between Deborah James and her family has been shown during a special documentary. The scene shows Deborah surrounded by her family in the final days before her death on Tuesday (June 28).
The BBC aired a special tribute to the late Dame Deborah James on Thursday night (June 30). The podcast star died following a five year battle with bowel cancer.
The Mirror reports that her family shared a clip of Deborah spending time with them in her final days. She was seen laying on the sofa as her family surrounded her and held her close.
Read more: 'A beacon, lighting the way' - Tributes pour in for Dame Deborah James
It was a very touching moment and viewers took to social media to comment on the heart-breaking scene as Deborah spent time with her family. Her family surrounded her in the clip, as they celebrated her BowelBabe fund reaching a new milestone.
Deborah's death was announced in an emotional Instagram post, as her family praised the BBC podcast host for always continuing to fight and raising awareness of bowel cancer and its symptoms. "Deborah, who many of you will know as Bowelbabe, was an inspiration and we are incredibly proud of her and her work and commitment to charitable campaigning, fundraising and her endless efforts to raise awareness of cancer that touched so many lives," her family penned in a sweet statement paying tribute to Deborah.
"Deborah shared her experience with the world to raise awareness, break down barriers, challenge taboos and change the conversation around cancer. Even in her most challenging moments, her determination to raise money and awareness was inspiring."
Since her death, Deborah's charity fundraising page has raised more than £7million as fans and friends paid tribute to the star and her incredible work. All the fundraising efforts will go to Cancer Research UK.
In one of her final Instagram posts, Deborah celebrated her T-shirts raising more than £1million for cancer research. "What’s funny is when @inthestyle released the first t-shirt we both said how incredible £50k raised would be so for me to still be here and see it’s over £1mil is just so incredible!" she shared.
"'Rebellious Hope’ is what has got me through the last few years and it’s what is keeping me going now! Seeing all your messages, tags and support has just been the best and I am so grateful that we have been able to do this together! Thank you all." In the poignant documentary, Deborah's friends and family including TV presenter Lorraine Kelly paid tribute.
"All she wanted to do was get this message across, make sure nobody else went through the same thing as her, make sure that everybody had the information that they needed and to stop people being stupid about their bottoms," Lorraine said. "That's what struck me. We started talking about bottoms and poo probably after 45 seconds when we met each other and I really just thought: 'I really like you, you're my kind of woman, you're a smasher.'
"The thing about it is, and the thing that's so hard, is that she always bounced back, and I always thought that she would. And that's been very difficult because we just always thought she'd be here." Lauren and Steve Bland, widower of Dame Deborah's former podcast host Rachael Bland, remembered their "best friend" and said they were "incredibly grateful to have had her at all," in the documentary.
Lauren said she wished Deborah could see what she meant to so many people, adding: "I just love her so much. We need to keep raising money because we cant lose any more Debs." In an emotional tribute, the broadcaster said: "Deb just has this ferocity in her to make a difference and to make sure nobody else suffers the same fate.
"Most people would just runaway from that, but Deb wanted to tell her story so it wouldn't be anyone's story." Deborah had a final message for her children before she passed as she praised her "incredible" family.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast in May, she explained: "I have a really loving family who I adore. Honestly, they’re incredible and all I knew I wanted was to come here and be able to relax knowing that everything was OK. I’ve had some really hard conversations during the last week.
"You think, 'Gosh, how can anyone have those conversations?' and then you find yourself in the middle of them. And people are very nice, but you’re talking about your own death and I’ve had five years to prepare for my death.
"It’s really hard. The thing that I know, because I trust my husband – he’s just the most wonderful man and so is my family and I know that my kids are going to be more than looked after and surrounded by love."
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