I CARRY HER IN MY HEART

Only those close to 7de Laan actress Crystal-Donna Roberts knew about her cancer battle. Here her mom Julia opens up about her tragic last days

- BY MEGHAN LAWRENCE

Watching her daughter fade away was devastating. For two years her beloved child had fought a long, brave battle with cancer, her fight unbeknown to anyone except the people closest to her.

While her mom, Julia, is reeling from the loss, she finds comfort in knowing her daughter went with a song in her heart. Hours before former 7de Laan actress Crystal-Donna Roberts passed away, she summoned her last reserves of strength to murmur the lyrics of the Judy Boucher song Can’t Be With You Tonight as she lay in bed in the home she shared with her husband, Schalk Cornelessen.

Julia, who was by her bedside, leaned forward to catch her daughter’s words. “If I could be in two places at the same time . . .” Crystal whispered.

Julia (63) at first didn’t understand why she was quoting that line – but after speaking to her mom, Magdalene Roberts, it all made sense.

Crystal and her grandmother had a close bond – Magdalene helped raise her and she called her gran “Momma” and her mom “Mommy”.

“Momma,” Crystal said as she drifted in and out of sleep a few hours earlier, “I was in a place where the houses and streets are made of gold. There’s a lot of gold there.”

When Magdalene told Julia about this dream she knew Crystal had had a vision of the place she’d go when she died – and suddenly the words of the Judy Boucher song made sense. She wasn’t dreading death but she also didn’t want to leave her loved ones behind.

Julia lay down on the bed beside her daughter. “Cryssie,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

Later that night Crystal passed away at her home in Boston in Bellville, Cape Town, at age 40.