My mum was lovely. That was her favourite word. She was so caring and she was about making everyone happy. The day we found out everything, we all had a cry and then she got up and she was dancing, the life of the room, the life of the party. She was amazing. I miss her a lot.

The cancer was caught late. She'd been having problems since the beginning of last year and was being treated for gallstones but her symptoms just didn’t line up, so she was sent for extra scans and a mass in her colon was found. From then it was discovered quite quickly that it was late stage bowel cancer.

My mum was quite healthy and so it came as a shock. Week after week it spread, it was really aggressive. I wasn't expecting that outcome, that's for sure. We found about the cancer on the first week, then the second week it was that it had spread to her lymph nodes and was now inoperable, and then the week after that she went into hospital. We were unaware of actually what was happening inside, it was just spreading so rapidly around her body; the lining of her stomach, her lymph nodes, her back, around her oesophagus, basically everywhere. In our third week of her being diagnosed, we found out it was end of life. She deteriorated within four weeks of diagnosis and we ended up at the Hospice.

Then we found out my dad’s mum, my nan, had died, which although she had been poorly and been in hospital for quite a while, was unexpected. She was actually around the back of my mum's ward in hospital and we found out she died around 6am. It was just so surreal, just one thing after another. It was a brutal four weeks.

Tracey, Caitlin and Cherry

On that first day it was just getting her comfortable, then in the evening quite a few our family and my mum's best friends came. It was nice because we played music and the nurses thought it was brilliant that my mum was singing Abba and Whitney Huston. She could not sing! It was quite amusing, we were all singing with her and it was emotional but nice. We have a Spotify playlist called ‘Mum’ of all the songs we played, so as we were playing it, my sister was putting it into a playlist. It’s nice to have the songs and I've got nice memories of that Monday night.

When I got to the Hospice, Julie the counsellor already knew about me and she came to see me within a few hours of me turning up. It was nice to have someone there for me, even before my mum died, someone that sort of already knew the situation and who wasn't family. 

Julie was there for me from the get-go. She was good for the whole family really. She came and spoke to us all briefly and she'd catch me in the corridor when we were walking through. I could speak to Julie throughout the week we were there, not for too long so I wasn't away for too long from my mum.

It meant a lot that we could have all the family there. The staff were really accommodating as we were there for five days and my whole family camped out there. Because it happened so quickly, we hadn't even told people that she had cancer, it progressed so quickly, we didn't have chance.

Tracey Griggs

We stayed there at night with my mum. They got us a hospital bed and my sister and I shared an air bed, and someone would always be awake with my mum, we'd all take it in turns. 

The gardens were really nice and I’d go and sit out there to sort of just chill out in the gardens when it was getting a bit too much. We could hear the pond fountain from the room. We'd be up at the crack of dawn every day, 5 o'clock in the morning. We'd see the sunrise and we'd go and sit outside and it was nice. Sometimes I would eat my breakfast outside because it was just nice to have five minutes just to sit with my thoughts. I wasn't expecting it to be that nice.

The nurses were really lovely, they’d come and check on us and get us teas and coffees. I remember we were all quite unwell when we first got there because we'd spend days not eating through worry, so when we got there, we were all a bit sick and they were so lovely to us. I feel it was just the relief as well after the last three weeks had been intense, and then getting there where it was just peaceful. 

The food is good there, so good. We had breakfast every day. We had lunch every day, all of us. We had dinner. I was surprised because I was expecting in a Hospice for the food not to be what it was, but it was good; dauphinoise potatoes and steaks, it was good, they fed us well. And the ice machine! Going to get ice, chewing ice; it was really good, not only for mum but for us as well. 

The Griggs family

I'm a massive Harry Styles fan, and on 19th June, two months before she passed away, my mum, my sister and I were at a concert in Wembley and we have all those photos, and that's the last thing we did with her. The last thing we did with my mum was being dressed up in feather boas and cowboy hats! It's a nice memory to have that we had a good time that day.

So we had a nice few weeks and then a rough few weeks, and then we went to the Hospice. She passed away with just us there, the four of us, my sister, my brother, my dad and me. 

I sort of have a very positive outlook on this in some sense that my mum would have hated going on with the chemo, she would have hated it. She would hate losing her hair, she would hate being sick, hate everyone waiting after her. I felt the way it happened was the way my mum would have wanted it. It was quick yes, and it wasn't nice, but it was the way she would have wanted it. It was very peaceful. 

My mum would not have wanted me being upset and just moping around. I mean, I have my days, obviously everyone does, but I sort of try and keep positive about it. I know my mum's death was peaceful and she was at the Hospice and she wanted to be there, and the family was peaceful there as well. I've got a lot of support with Julie, she's a massive help. 

Caitlin, Cherry and Tracey at a Harry Styles concert