Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. If you dont know the reason for me doing this, see my story below;

I found out my mum had breast cancer in early 2008, I was 29, she was 61, and like anyone in this situation I tried to stay positive and think the best.  This however was not to be, as I was told just before christmas that mum did not have long to live. I still remember feeling I that I should prepare myself for the loss, but my heart was telling me not to give up on her....and for the first time in my life I remember praying.

Mum deteriorated quickly after Christmas and we were told early in January 2009 that it was matter of weeks not months that she would have left with us, which was very hard as I live 3 hours aways from Mum and Dads house and wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.

I spoke to my manager Keith, who said..... 'do what you need to do and dont worry about work'... he told me to spend as much time as I needed with my Mum ...He will never know how grateful I was for that....I spent most of January going backwards and forwards to Essex supporting my dad and spending as much time with my mum as I could in hospital.

Mum came home late Janaury to spend the end of her life with her family; She was due to go into a hospice as she wanted to pass away out of hospital and not in her home. After a couple of days of mum being home she was doing really well and I had been there for a week so I decided to come home for a couple of days. Within a few of hours of arriving home I got a phone call from my sister telling me to come straight away as the district nurse caring for mum had said she was passing away and it would not be long.

Mum had all her family with her including her brothers & sisters but not me. I left home knowing I had at least 3hr journey in heavy snow which had started falling an hour before across the country. Within an hour I had another call from my sister saying that mum wanted to talk to me, my mum came on and told me 'she loved me very much and that she would always be with me'. I had to say goodbye to my mum over the phone and did not know if I was going to make it home to her, I have never felt so much pain & panic in saying so few words in all my life and nearly 'lost it' in the car on the M5.

I managed to make it home and mum was still with us, the disctrict nurse could not believe the turnaround in mums condition and she believes it was her determination & will to not die until until I was there. Mum was looked after overnight by a Macmillan nurse and she was still with us in the morning however not consciously. I remember laying with mum in the morning on my own for around an hour just cuddling up to her. I thanked her for being my mum, told her I loved her so much & said it was ok for her to go and be with her mum & dad again (mum was very religous).

Mum passed away an hour or so later with her husband & four children around her, which is exactly how she would have wanted it. We were all devastated but glad she was in peace.

Her death was a very hard pill to swallow, even more so, as we found out 3 days after losing mum that Sooz my wife, was pregnant with our first child Maisie.

Knowing we were having a baby made me the happiest person in the world as any dad feels when he finds out for the first time. I felt devastated by Mums death but elated because we were having a baby, and I felt I needed to put my wife & baby first now and find a way to put the loss of my mum to one side.

About a month passed and we got through Mums cremation and were trying to come to terms with her death. We then got a phone call from Sooz's Mum Ann, to say she had got a tumour in her oesophagus and would have to undergo lots of tests to see what it was, we couldnt believe it!...Several months passed where Ann was having lots of tests and it was then confirmed that it was oesophageal cancer and she had a small tumour in the base of her throat but should make a recovery as it was caught early. She went onto a cancer research trial of chemotherapy for several months and would have an operation at the end of the treatment to remove the tumour and reconstruct her oesophagus. We got through the next few months making all the plans for our new family. Sooz's mum went in to have her operation in June which we were obviously all worried about, but the surgeon assured us he did hundreds of these type of ops with only a tiny complication rate so we were feeling positive she would come through it ok. The operation went well and she started recovering, but after 48 hours she started deteriorating severely and had to have another two major operations to try and save her life due to a massive complication. We never got to talk to her again or say goodbye.  Ann never regained conciousness and suffered a massive stroke and we were told that she would not survive, so Sooz's Dad had to make the horrendous decision of turning off her life support machine, and we watched her take her last breath while we were all by her side. She was 69, Sooz was 39.

I have to say Ann had always been like a mum to me and she was now my only mum, and watching her die in front of me only 5mths after my mum, was like having your heart ripped out all over again.

I was so angry and sad and emotional and couldnt believe life had done this to us, it was unfair, but I knew I had to put everything to one side and be the husband and dad that I knew I needed to be for my wife.

No one should lose their mum until late in their life, and after they have given them the pleasure of grandchildren, but for us to lose both our mums in the same year while we were pregnant with Maisie, was just so wrong on so many levels. I would not wish the pain of this on my worst enemy. Seeing my wife carrying our child after losing her mum, in the knowledge that there is nothing you can say to make them feel any better, is painful. I just had to get her through the next few months and hope that all this stress would not affect her or our baby.

I have to say a big thankyou to my beautiful wife as she went through hell for 3 days giving birth to Maisie in hospital, and she was so strong, Maisie was born on the 16th October 2009 a big bouncing 10llb baby girl.

It has taken a long time for me to start grieving for our mums and I apologise if the above is very long and upsetting but it has been a big help to me to put this in writing. I loved our Mums and there has been a huge void left without them. We have two lovely Dads left, who we know miss their wonderful wives every minute of every day and I am always here for both of them as my wife is.

The Marathon has become for me since I started training, a way to grieve and accept the loss of our mums. This training will culminate in me completing the marathon and feeling like I have done something in our mums memories to say goodbye & hopefully for me put some closure on this part of my life.

I would therefore be so grateful if you could dig as deep as possible and donate now, because we are all touched or will be in some way by the horrible disease of cancer in our life. I know your support through this, not just in donations but in words, will help me to drive forward through the cold, rain & snow over the next few months to get to the London Marathon and complete that 26.2 mile course for my mums - Val & Ann R.I.P.

At the moment I am training for 4hrs a week and this will build up to 7hrs at its peak 4wks before the event, if your not sure how far 26.2 miles is, next time you are out in your car re-set your mileage and when you hit it imagine running back the way you came?! It is scary even when I do it...

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