The Legal Examiner Affiliate Network The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner search instagram avvo phone envelope checkmark mail-reply spinner error close The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner
Skip to main content

Today is a day to celebrate mom and all the wonderful things that she has does for you. While perusing the Internet this morning, I was reminded of the beautiful relationship that can live on even after a beloved mother passes. Kate Greene is an example of that enduring love and her story has been transformed into a best-selling book.

Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer several years ago. That diagnosis came just on the heels of another family tradgedy–one of Kate's young sons, 18-month-old Reef, was diagnosed with a very rare soft tissue cancer that gave him a 6% chance of living. During that same time period, Kate gave birth to her second son, Finn, 7 weeks early. Kate and her husband thought that would lose both of their sons, but Reef received chemotherapy and survived cancer with a disability in one of his legs. Finn also survived, but Kate wasn't so lucky after her breast cancer diagnosis. Although Kate fought her breast cancer for 2 years through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, she relapsed in 2009. This time she couldn't fight it off.

Kate and her family had already scheduled a Christmas trip to Lapland, where they planned to see Father Christmas. She did, indeed, make that trip with her family, but was rushed home afterwards and told that she only had 18 months to live. Kate died after 18 days, but before she passed away she instructed her husband to write down 20 things. The list was extensive and included small loving acts like kissing her two boys every night to urging her husband to find another wife. Kate also asked her husband to fulfill long-planned dreams of traveling to Belize and skating around a museum. Kate's husband published Kate's list as a love letter to her. It is entitled "Mum's List" and is currently a best-seller in the U.K. It is slated to come to the U.S. on June 5.

Comments for this article are closed.