Rio Ferdinand: I told kids mum was going to the stars
The former England captain has written of how he believes his wife 'held on to life' to see their daughter Tia's fourth birthday.
Sunday 24 September 2017 14:10, UK
Rio Ferdinand told his children their mother was "going to go up into the stars" in the days before she passed away.
The former Manchester United and England captain has given an emotional account in a new book of his wife Rebecca's passing in 2015 after being diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time, aged just 34.
In Thinking Out Loud - Love, Grief And Being Mum And Dad, Ferdinand, 38, wrote that his three children stared at him "wide-eyed, dumbstruck" as he told them about their mother's illness.
"I gazed at my beautiful children, lost for words, searching for a way to begin," he wrote in the book, which is being serialised in The Sun.
"I'm afraid I've got to tell you something very, very sad. Mum's not going to be able to get out of here. She's got cancer again and this time she isn't going to get better," Ferdinand told his children.
"They stared at me, wide-eyed, dumbstruck," he wrote.
Ferdinand told his three children; Lorenz, 11, Tate, nine, and six-year-old Tia: "They've been trying to help her, the doctors, but they can't any more.
"She's been strong, and she's tried to get better, but I'm so sorry. She's going to be a star - she's going to go up into the stars as a spirit, and she'll always be there in the sky, looking down on us and..."
"I couldn't go on. Tears were streaming down the children's faces; they were sobbing, crying out. 'Why? Why? Why?' Tate kept wailing, over and over. 'What are you talking about?'
"I tried to explain again, but we were beyond words by then; engulfed in a firestorm of pain. Even now, the memory of that scene is enough to plunge me back into a darkness I never want to see again."
Ferdinand, who was praised earlier this year for filming a BBC documentary about coping with his grief and raising their children alone, says that he held them tight as they "broke down and sobbed".
"All I could think was, '******* ****, could someone please help me?'."
Ferdinand said he believes his wife "held on to life" in her final days to see their daughter Tia celebrate her fourth birthday.
"By then her liver was failing and her limbs were swelling, her body was covered with bruises and she was suffering explosive nosebleeds," he writes.
"When the time came for the cake, Rebecca lifted Tia so she could blow out her candles.
"I think she had held on to life so she could see Tia turn four. It was the last time the children saw her fully conscious and alert."