BEFORE YOU GO

Sam Michaels, 56, couldn't let her beloved mum leave without throwing her one last party

- LOUISE BATY

Typing on my laptop as sunshine streamed through the window, I smiled at my mum Brenda, 81, sipping a mug of tea beside me. It was January this year and Mum and I were the best of friends, who'd shared so much over the years.

Not only did we look similar, we had the same sense of humour and would end up howling with laughter on our weekly shopping and lunch trips. We loved a party, often dressing up in wacky costumes, like the comedy elf costumes we wore every Christmas Eve.

We'd also both emigrated from the UK to Valencia, Spain - Mum first with my dad Jim in 2004, followed by me and my husband Simon, 59, in 2014. Now we were neighbours, and since losing Dad in 2021, Mum and I spent even more time together.

Mum had carved out a successful writing career through her 60s and 70s and more recently, she'd passed on a very important gift to me - her series of bestselling novels, based in Battersea, London, where she'd grown up, which she'd written under the pen name Kitty Neale. Now that she was retired, she'd suggested that I could write the books as Kitty Neale and I was thrilled to be continuing Mum's legacy.

Then, in early March this year, Mum came to me looking worried, saying that she'd found two lumps, one in her right breast and another under her arm.

DEVASTATING NEWS