A letter to... The bravest boy I know

MEMORABLE SPEECH

- Anna Matheson

Dear Robert,

Remember how excited you were when we told you we’d booked a family visit to Lapland UK.

It was December 2015, you were just 5.

‘Thanks!’ you beamed at me and your dad Matteo, then 42.

You talked non-stop about Santa with your brothers Thomas, who was 13 at the time, Giacomo, 9, and Marco, 18 months.

But shortly after, as we snuggled up to watch TV, I felt a lump on your neck.

I got you checked out and, as we waited for the blood test results, we got on with Christmas preparations, threw our usual ‘panettone and prosecco’ party.

But on 21 December, the phone rang.

‘Come to A&E, the consultant will be waiting,’ the doctor told me.

Any drop of festive joy was sucked out of me.

I drove you to the hospital in Tooting, in silence.