By the time Laura reached A&E with unbearable abdominal pain, the obstruction in her bowel demanded emergency surgery. Surgeons removed the blockage, but further tests exposed the real horror: stage three bowel cancer that had quietly spread while she tried to carry on as a working mother of two. Six months of chemotherapy brought a brief, fragile hope after one clear scan, only to be shattered weeks later when doctors confirmed the cancer was back and more aggressive.

Faced with relentless treatments that made her feel worse than the disease, Laura chose something radical: to stop chasing time and start inhabiting it. Supported by St Christopher’s Hospice, she spent her final weeks at home, reading with her children, laughing with friends, and talking honestly about death. She insisted that dying did not have to be brutal or hidden. In those last days, Laura said she had never lived so fully, or loved so consciously. She left this world held, seen, and profoundly understood.