Tom Parker’s wife Kelsey recalls heartbreaking moment she told kids he’d died

Kelsey Parker says telling daughter Aurelia and son Bodhi about their dad’s tragic death from a brain tumour at just 33 is one of the toughest things she’ll ever have to do

Tom Parker ‘s wife Kelsey has recalled the heartbreaking moment she had to tell the couple’s children that their dad had passed away.

The Wanted star died from a brain tumour last month following an 18-month battle, aged just 33.

Kelsey, 32, speaking for the first time since her husband of three years died, said it was one of the toughest things she will ever have to do as she explained to Aurelia, two, and Bodhi, 18 months, what had happened.

She told the Sun on Sunday : “Aurelia had been getting really confused when Tom went into the hospice.

“On the Wednesday when I knew I was going in to see Tom I said to her, ‘I want to make sure that Daddy is OK and the angels come and take him’.

“We’ve just been really really honest with the children because you have to be, but having to tell her that her Daddy had died, that was really tough.

“I couldn’t talk, it was like I had something stuck in my throat, I couldn’t say it, but I knew I had to say those words to her because she had to know.

“She just said, ‘OK Mummy’, but I needed to be straight with her.”

Widow Kelsey went on to explain that despite the terrible circumstances, some of the pair’s most precious moments came in the days leading up to Tom’s death as she visited him at St. Christopher’s Hospice near their South London home.

“We were in bed together for two hours, I just wanted that time with him,” she said.

“I didn’t want anyone coming in. We needed that time together to talk. It was romantic even then. Yes, we were in a hospice, but that was Tom as a person – it never mattered where we were. He was always so romantic, loving and caring, and absolutely worshipped the ground I walked on.

“That night I could see within him that he was still trying to figure a way out of this. He’d been in the hospice for just over a week.”

Kelsey said she told him that she and their children would be okay, promising to teach Aurelia and Bodhi ‘everything he wanted them to know’.

“He said, ‘I know you’re going to be okay. He then took off his wedding ring and put it on my finger,” she added.

“I think he knew then it was the end, but he still had the Tom fight in him. He didn’t want to go. You always want that miracle and I was wishing for that miracle. Of course you want that.”

Tom’s treatment consisted of 30 rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiotherapy as the singer tried everything he could to beat the disease.

He later spent three weeks in Spain receiving specialist treatment, before returning to the UK to bravely join his bandmates on stage during their reunion tour in March.

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