Kate Garraway has opened up about her deep sadness after her husband Derek Draper passed away.
She said she wished she had spent more time just “holding his hand”. The TV star, aged 56, was emotional while talking about her life with Derek in a new ITV documentary called Derek’s Story. She talked about the “big hole” left in her life since he died on January 3.
Derek had been sick for over three years due to coronavirus that affected his major organs. In the film, viewers saw Derek’s bed at home empty while he was in hospital in December after a cardiac arrest. Later, Kate is in the same room where Derek used to sleep, but now there’s a table and chairs instead, and she says it feels like a “very different room now”.
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Talking to the camera in February, Kate shared: “We’ve got the Lego which never was finished. Actually this is the book he was reading, very slowly, at the very end and this is as far as he got. I said to him, trust you to be reading ‘A Little Life’ because if anybody had a big life it was Derek and it’s left a big hole.”, reports the Mirror.
She also said that some people try to make her feel better by saying it must be a relief that Derek isn’t hurting anymore and that she doesn’t have to look after him all day. But Kate said that she doesn’t feel relieved at all.
She shared: “I think if I have any regrets, it’s every single minute that I didn’t spend holding his hand because I had to go and write an email, I had to go and make a phone call, having to fight the system that should be there to catch you when you’re fall, but feels when you’re going through it like it’s there to catch you out. And that’s what now I want to be Derek’s legacy to fight on for that change.”
She then showed some of the many “incredible” condolence cards she has received, with people encouraging her to keep fighting for better care in the NHS. “The one thing Derek has taught me is never give up fighting for what is right,” she said. “It is not about Derek or me, it is about having a society where caring is not a luxury. We are all going to need it.”
Derek was seen in the film speaking briefly last year and went to a pioneering brain cell clinic in Mexico at the end of 2023 to help his recovery. But he had a heart attack and after 14 hours of brain surgery, he was flown with Kate on a “terrifying” intensive care unit (ICU) plane to a London hospital.
In late December, Kate was filmed at home knowing that Derek might not leave the hospital and his life could be ending soon. She said at the time: “Derek had a cardiac arrest. The heart muscles basically had been weakened by COVID at the very beginning, and they went out of sync, and this created a blood clot of massive proportions.
“And that blood clot has now gone to Derek’s brain. By the time I got there, they’d managed to get the heart going and they’d managed to stabilise him and he was breathing, but the clot had caused huge damage. Then relentlessly from then on, consultants have just been saying there’s no way back.
(Image: ITV)
“He’s still breathing, they think he could hear. So I sat down with him and holding his hand, I just said to him ‘look you know me, I’m gonna fight this all the way. But if you can’t fight it more and actually what you need now is peace, then don’t think about us. We’re going to be fine’. Because I do feel like an awful lot of what he’s done has been about wanting to be the dad or be a husband.
“It was a different kind of love that we have before. But it was love and even though it was chaotic and crazy, and you know, a slog, an absolute slog, in the midst of all that was this family. I’ve just got to try to hold on to that. I’ve just said well, we’ll stick with it to the end.”
Derek passed away in hospital on January 3 2024, with Kate, Darcey, and Bill by his side. Derek was asked by film director Lucy Wilcox what’s been the most important thing to him in the last three years and replied “family” in reference to Kate and their children Darcey, 18, and Billy, 15. Kate and their children Darcey and Billy.
In a happy clip, we see him walking with a frame just nine days before his heart problem. Other videos show him having fun with his kids over the years. On Good Morning Britain today, Kate Garraway said she feels “ashamed” because she’s in debt from paying for her husband Derek Draper’s care.
She was paying £16,000 every month for Derek’s care before he passed away in January at 56. He had been sick from Covid for a long time. Kate said that even with her ITV salary, the money wasn’t enough for Derek’s basic care, his special treatments, their house payments, or other bills.
Kate told GMB: “I am ashamed of the fact I’m in debt. I have an incredible job that I love that’s very well paid. I’m not a carer travelling miles, paying their own transport to go and help somebody for minimum wage. I’m somebody that is very well paid and so I just feel a shame that I couldn’t make it work.”
You can watch “Kate Garraway: Derek’s Story” on ITV and it’s also on ITVX to watch.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
