Simon Thomas has spoken of the heartbreaking moment he had to tell his son, nine, that his mum had died.
The former Sky Sports and Blue Peter presenter, 46, said his “hands were trembling” as he recalled the gut-wrenching moment he had to tell Ethan wife Gemma had passed away just three days after she was diagnosed with cancer in November 2017
Just a few weeks after she fell ill, Gemma was diagnosed with leukaemia. She had only just celebrated her 40th birthday.
“I said, ‘Ethan, you know mummy hasn’t been very well?’ He slowly nodded but said nothing. “Well today mummy became really, really poorly, which is why you came into the hospital to see her,” Simon recalled.
Simon repeatedly said sorry and told him the doctors tried “everything to make mummy better”.
He went on: “Before the words could even form in my mouth tears filled in his eyes and he cried out, ‘Has mummy died?’ Every part of me wanted to somehow sugar-coat what I had to say, but I knew for his sake, I couldn’t.
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Simon added to the Mail: “His legs began to buckle and I said what I’d never imagined saying in my worst nightmares: ‘I’m so, so sorry, but mummy’s died.'”
The TV presenter also recently opened up about how he copes with his grief, saying he’s been seeing a counsellor since three weeks after Gemma died.
“Grief is painful whoever you’ve lost and whatever time in your life you lose them,” he said at an event for Marie Curie.
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“I had a decision to make and there were at least two moments where I near did end it. My boy has been the single biggest reason I keep going.”
Following Gemma’s death, Simon launched a fund to raise money for research into the type of leukaemia she had.
He said it was difficult to make people aware of cancer of the blood because the symptoms could be “very varied, very general”.
TV presenter Simon and Gemma married in 2005.
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