'I Wanted To Remain Positive About The Time I Had Left With John'

Laura King recounts the last months spent with John, her husband of 26 years, who died from a brain tumour

- Victoria Young

LAURA KING, 58, runs her own business supplying fine foods. She lives with her 23-year-old daughter Holly, and her 18-year old son Harry, and also has two grown-up stepchildren, Gemma and Gareth, from John’s first marriage. John, who was a chef, was 65 when he died of a brain tumour in November 2016.

“John was a really big character – tall, funny, warm, generous, kind – and very attractive. I know it sounds like a cliché, but he was my rock. We had to refinance our home to start my business, but he supported me absolutely. He was an exceptional man.

John was very fit. He was a keen golfer and had even run a long marathon a few years ago. But then he started missing his step. One day after a golf tournament with friends, I got a call to say he’d fallen and been taken to hospital. As I arrived, he was rushed to the resuscitation unit after two seizures and put on a life-support machine.

It took doctors a few days to work out what was going on. The surgeon told us he was 99,9% sure that John had a glioblastoma brain tumour. I remember him saying, ‘With tumours like this, the average life expectancy is 15 months.’