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Andrew M Barrowc Married Married Married: 2000 Annabel Pauline Freyberg F/Mc | |||||
| Blossom Perronelle Barrow [CFT #3850] Born: 2003 Died: 2012 |
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| When she was four, Blossom was given heavy-duty radiotherapy in an attempt to deactivate her cancer. She had to lie on a narrow bed in an underground room entirely on her own, while her parents waited in the operations hub some distance away. This was all explained to her, and she was very good about it, as she always was. Then just as radiotherapy was about to begin, dressed only in vest and knickers, she got up from the bed saying, ‘Stop, stop!’ She was asked what was wrong. Well, she said, she needed to do a radiotherapy dance before treatment began – and she proceeded to do one around the bed with a lot of twirling. She went on to perform it every time she had radiotherapy, however sore. It was very entertaining, not something the radiotherapists had encountered before, and it was typical of Blossom. If something wasn’t much fun, she made her own – which was why at another hospital she used the chemotherapy drip as a scooter while dressed as a bald Snow White and managed to tip it and herself onto the floor – the usually tolerant nurses were not amused. Although Blossom was fantastically unlucky in having the cancer she did, she was amazingly blessed in some of the people she encountered along the way. For example, when she ‘relapsed’ a year ago, we were offered the services of a play specialist. Alarmed by what that might entail, I at first said no. Luckily, curiosity got the better of me, and Blossom was befriended by the joyous Laura, and with her made a theatre in which some of her many bears could perform – often with alarming vigour, so that Laura had to ban the bears’ ‘baguette’ fights, enacted using pretzel sticks, because of the quantity and energy of crushed crumbs flung in every direction. One of the great things about Blossom’s life was that in spite of being seriously ill for a year when she was four to five and then from eight to nine, she wasn’t ever an invalid: I don’t think any concessions were made – or desired – whether at home, school, riding or other activities. There were no days off feeling poorly, or any medicines at all apart from the most severe. She participated fully in everything going on – and usually a lot more energetically than most. Thus she went rock-climbing, kayaking, riding, swimming, bicycling – she was very proud of learning to ride a bike in a day – and was sometimes a little too fearless for her parents. She showed no nerves when high-wire walking 60 feet above the ground; had to be dragged back to land after swimming on her surfboard too far out to sea, and always headed straight for the fastest, most dangerous rides at fun fairs. Blossom was a great joiner-inner. Whether it was picking beans in the garden, taking a dog or a horse for a walk, watching Tommy Cooper videos with her father, enjoying Flanders & Swann CDs in the car, sewing clothes for Teddy Barrow, paddling in a stream, picking elderflowers or blackberries, she was companionable, curious and friendly. She was also gloriously independent, and in the country would rise alarmingly early so as ‘not to waste the day’ and change clothes several times, dressing very much in her own style. Typically, on Mother’s Day this year, she got up at 6 or so to make a cooked breakfast on her own and brought it (plus card) to me in bed. She couldn’t hang around for long, she said, because she had to clean out the rabbits’ and guinea pigs’ cages and please could we book appointments for their nails to be clipped. She was also going to make pancakes for her own breakfast, watch television, then plant a flower border outside Diamond Cottage, her playhouse. If possible, could she have chicken for lunch – oh, and after that she and her brother, Otto would like to go swimming. She loved being in the countryside. Blossom repeatedly illustrated booklets about her experiences in hospital, writing: ‘the good thing about cancer is that you can’t give it to any one.’ She was unworried by her really shocking spelling and without any encouragement from Andrew or I spent hours absorbed in writing and drawing. Only recently she did a painting of ‘My London’ for a Cancer Research UK children’s art competition while she was having a blood transfusion. Awarded highly commended, it was shown in an exhibition the day she died. A couple of days earlier she was excitedly planning to go to it. Blossom had a great capacity for enjoyment, and adored school life and her school friends, and in this she was incredibly lucky again. She attended a fantastically happy school, St Mary Abbots, where she had kind and engaging teachers, wonderful projects to participate in, stunning music, art and church services. Everyone there has been enormously helpful, straightforward and supportive – and made it clear that Blossom was a cheerful and positive presence. Thanks to the doctors and nurses at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Blossom lived five years from her first diagnosis of neuroblastoma, five years I am eternally grateful for and which she thoroughly enjoyed. She was extremely brave. At four she decided she wouldn’t cry out when a nose tube was being removed or put in – which happened often at the time – and she really didn’t, to the amazement of the nurses who looked after her. She didn’t make a noise during endless blood tests either, and she didn’t complain about her considerable loss of hearing. She wasn’t a complainer. She found it tough to have cancer a second time. She became fascinated by people who had endured hardship, such as Scott of the Antarctic – partly because Helen of Blue Peter made the trek to the South Pole – or disasters such as the Titanic. She didn’t know her life was going to be short, but she made sure that it was full and fun anyway. It has been such FUN to be Blossom’s mother. I wish I could go on and on, but thank you darling Blossom for nine glorious years. Anthony Cobbold August 2012 Abridged from an address about Blossom Barrow by her mother, Annabel Freyberg given on Friday 11th May 2012 at St-Martha-on-the-Hill. |
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