I lost my daughter to brain cancer at 23 – her death taught us how to live in the moment

When Laura Nuttall was diagnosed with brain cancer at just 19, she made the headlines for working her way through an incredible list of ambitions. In the four years she was undergoing treatment before her death at age 23, she met Michelle Obama, commanded a Royal Navy Ship and went on stage with Peter Kay who made a comeback to raise money for her treatment. In her new book, The Stars Will Still Be There: What my daughter taught me about love, life and loss, Laura’s mum Nicola details the family’s journey. Here, Nicola, her mother, and Gracie, Laura’s younger sister, now 22, share their memories.

‘You expect to lose your parents at some point. But no parent expects to bury their child’

Nicola Nuttall

Laura was just six weeks into her first term at King’s College London studying international relations when she began suffering from migraines. The family joked that too many late nights or a student diet of Pot Noodles were to blame, but the headaches persisted, and she had passed out while reading her books one evening.

A routine eye test revealed swelling behind her eyes, and the next day she became unwell. Desperately worried, I travelled with my 16-year-old daughter Gracie from our home in Lancashire to the London halls of residence where we’d recently moved Laura. We found her motionless and vomiting, and took her straight to A&E where a doctor gave us the news that she had a brain tumour.

Laura said dryly ‘Plot twist’, in what was the understatement of the year. She had a very dry sense of humour, which often got us through some of the tough times that were to come. Laura had glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive kind of brain tumour, and was given just 12 months to live.

After enduring a craniotomy to remove the largest of eight tumours in her brain, she underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy and eventually travelled to Germany to try an innovative new treatment paid for by fundraising. She wanted to live and was prepared to do whatever she needed to do. She held two positions of being realistic about her prognosis, while still having hope. I’m so grateful she never lost her hope. 

The bucket list was Gracie’s idea originally, and it became a great way to keep Laura occupied while all her friends were away at university. Friends and family began getting in touch and saying, ‘I can help with this and that’, and it spiralled from there. We were so touched by people’s generosity and so grateful at how happy it made Laura. 

She commanded a Royal Navy ship, presented a television forecast, and after transferring her degree closer to home, she eventually graduated from the University of Manchester in 2022. I would look at her and be astonished that this poorly girl, who had been throwing up minutes before, had a big smile on her face, determined to make the best of things. She fitted more into her 23 years than most of us do in a lifetime.

It’s hard to explain how I found strength during Laura’s illness. I would see friends or neighbours in the street or at the supermarket and they would ask me how she was. I would see the look on their faces when I explained the latest news. I couldn’t break down because it would make them feel uncomfortable, so I smiled politely. And I saved my crying for the early mornings when I couldn’t sleep and would run along our local canal before the sun rose or at bedtime when my tears soaked into my pillow.

Soon after her diagnosis I began researching everything about Laura’s illness, joining Facebook groups, and looking for stories of families who had defied the odds. I had begun journaling a year before her diagnosis. Afterwards, it became hard to retain and process all the information we were being given, and how I was feeling, so I wrote it all down. That’s how my book started. It just would have been great if we’d had a different ending.

When your child is ill, you find resources you didn’t know you had. It’s the same strength that means people can lift a car up if their child is under it. Falling apart just wasn’t an option. That’s why I would find myself holding it together when people asked me how I was coping. If I wobbled and a brick fell, the whole wall would come tumbling down.

The consequences of terminal illness doesn’t just affect the person who is ill, there is a ripple effect right the way through the family. Siblings are hit particularly hard, and there’s a phrase called ‘glass children’ where everybody looks right through a sibling and asks how the patient or their parents are coping.

You expect to lose your parents at some point. But no parent expects to bury their child, and you don’t expect to lose your big sister when you’re a teenager. Gracie was 16 when Laura became ill, and at that age you need your mum around, but her mum was busy on the Internet looking for a cure. That was really difficult for her. We tried our best, but as a family we butted heads during Laura’s illness.

I wish this was talked about more often. You often hear about parents of abducted or murdered children breaking up, and I get it. Trauma can tear a family apart. Everybody handles it in different ways and you have to learn to be OK with that. At times I would become frustrated by Mark’s constant positivity. Didn’t he get how bad this was? I also felt jealous of other people’s normal lives. I think it’s disingenuous to not be honest about these things because it makes others in the same situation think, ‘Is it just me who feels this way?’.

That said, losing Laura bought us closer together as a family and taught us so much. How to live in the moment, to know how valuable and precious life is, and how easily it can be taken away. Laura once told me she didn’t know how to live until she knew she was dying.

We’re now channelling that energy to raise awareness and funding for brain cancer and we work with Our Brain Bank, The Brain Tumour Charity and Angel Mums, which supports parents who have lost children to brain cancer and is part of the Tessa Jowell foundation.

We’re making as much noise as we can about brain cancer, so no other family has to go through what we went through. It’s what Laura would have expected from us.”

‘Sibling loss is often overlooked’

Gracie Nuttall

Laura was the best big sister, albeit an unconventional one. She didn’t talk to me about boys or make-up, but on my 16th birthday she set me up with a Help To Buy ISA. She was old and wise beyond her years, and so incredibly kind.

When we were six and eight my parents popped to the local shops and told us to stay home. I went out to play with our next-door neighbours, despite Laura telling me not to, and fell over and tore my trousers. Laura ran me a bath, cleaned my grazed knee, and never breathed a word of it to our parents. They only found out when I told this story during my speech at the celebration of her life.

Life was tough after Laura’s diagnosis. At school, the teachers would ask me how she was, or how my parents were, and I thought, why does nobody ever ask how I am? It was an isolating experience, made worse by being surrounded by teenagers who were worried about boys and clothes. I don’t blame them for that, but they just didn’t get it.  

I came up with the idea for Laura’s bucket list, and in typical Laura style she said, “I’m not planning on dying just yet, thank you”. I wanted her to add ‘Meet Taylor Swift’ to it, but she wanted to meet Michelle Obama and go on a freezing cold Royal Navy ship. I wish she’d let me have more of a say!

Watching my parents in pain, and the one person who I loved more than anybody else in the world die, was unimaginably hard. I had survivors’ guilt for being the one who got to live. Surely, she had so much more to offer than me? And I lost my trust in the world. People assume losing somebody makes you want to go out and grasp every opportunity but the opposite can also be true. You want to stay home because life feels too scary. When my parents are out I worry something will happen to them, and it’s hard to form attachments because I know what it’s like to lose somebody you love.

I’ve teamed up with Callum Fairhurst from Sibling Support, who lost his brother, and we’re working on a podcast to raise awareness of sibling loss to make sense of it all.

Milestones are particularly hard, and the one-year anniversary of her death is in May. Grief is a squiggly line, and one year on it doesn’t get easier. I also know other milestones will hit me hard, like when I get married or have a baby, and my big sister isn’t there by my side. But when she was alive, Laura used to tell our younger cousins that when she was gone she would turn the sky pink. So now, whenever the sky turns pink, I look up and I know Laura is with me.

As told to Maria Lally   

The Stars Will Still Be There: What my daughter taught me about love, life and loss by Nicola Nuttall is out now