‘Mum’s List’ Becomes Bestseller, Tells Of Dying Mom’s Wish List For Family
Kate Greene was an incredibly inspiring woman and mother of two boys. Greene passed away from breast cancer in January of 2010, but not before bestowing a list upon husband, Singe, of twenty things she wanted him to do with their boys.
The book “Mum’s List: A Mother’s Life Lessons to the Husband and Sons She Left Behind” was written and published by her husband, St. John Greene, and details the list, and also the journey he has been on with his sons to fulfill his wife’s dying wishes.
Kate and Singe were childhood sweethearts. ABC reports that Singe said of their relationship:
“I met Kate when she was only 14. We were childhood sweethearts. We met on roller skates; she fell for me in more than one way.”
Greene proposed to his wife while they were on a ski trip in Switzerland. They were married for 23 years, and traveled the world together.
Kate also gave birth to two sons, Reef and Finn. At 18 months, Reef was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue cancer, which had a survival rate of only six percent. Finn was born not long after the diagnosis–seven weeks premature. Singe recalled that:
“We thought we were going to lose both our sons at the same time with Reef’s cancer diagnosis and Finn’s premature birth.”
The couple was forced to go between two different hospitals, which were located at opposite ends of Bristol, England. Both boys recovered, and the Greenes thought that life would be normal from then on.
Unfortunately, normalcy was not meant to be for Singe and Kate, as the mother discovered two lumps in her breast. Upon examination, she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, a highly metastasizing cancer, known to spread rapidly. Now, it was Kate’s turn to undergo chemotherapy.
She fought against the cancer for two years, but suffered her final relapse in December of 2009. St. John Greene recalls:
“Kate started to cough; she couldn’t get rid of it. We had already booked a Christmas trip to Lapland. Kate probably knew at that point that she was going to have a recurrence, but she was determined that her sons see Father Christmas.”
Kate was rushed to the hospital, but passed away just 18 days later. One night after her final hospital trip, Greene recalls Kate saying:
“Could I take the boys to a beach in Wales she had gone to when she was a child? She then rattled 20 more things. I told her you need to write it down. This was between Christmas and the 20th of January (2010) when we lost her. If she survived longer, the list would have been longer.”
This request, along with 19 others, are detailed in the book, which, according to Newser, is due out in the U.S. on June 5th.
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