Kate Garraway has shared the heartbreaking plans she had for the future with husband Derek Draper before his death.
Draper died aged 56 last year from Covid complications, almost four years after he contracted the disease.
The psychotherapist became critically ill in December 2023 following a cardiac arrest and he died on January 3, 2024, after slipping into a coma.
Good Morning Britain star Garraway revealed it’s a “sad” time as their children Darcey, 18, and Billy, 15, are preparing to flee the nest and go to university.
The TV host, 57, explained that she and Draper, who would have celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary this year, had “always” wanted to travel when their kids grew up.
“It’s sad in a way, because it’s a time that Derek and I always said we’d travel together and do more grown-up things. We used to love travelling and holidays,” she told HELLO! magazine.
Garraway also shared Draper’s wish for her and the kids to be “positive” and “get out and live”.
"I can begin to see a new positivity for the three of us – I am hoping. Where we don't look back and remember, ‘This time last year we were doing this or that with Dad,’ but focus on the future,” she said.
"Derek would want me to be grabbing life, because you learn how fast, and how easily, it can be snatched away. I know he'd be saying, ‘You've got to get out and live, because I can't.'"
In December, Garraway discussed her “raw grief” ahead of her first Christmas without her husband.
She told co-host Susanna Reid on GMB: “It’s very raw Susanna to be honest. It’s very raw.
“I mean this time last year, Derek was still alive – very sick. We thought it was the toughest Christmas because weirdly in 2020 we had a lot of hope that he was coming out.
“I think that I am [still] in the early stages of grief. The pain and the feeling is still there.”
The presenter added: “It's a tough one this year and anyone experiencing grief, it does hit you, when you feel something which is full of tradition, where you have memories, it comes back.
“I'm thinking about everybody else that's feeling it.”
Draper was among the first in the UK to fall seriously ill with Covid-19 and was admitted to an intensive care unit as the country entered lockdown in March 2020.
He was placed in an induced coma and it was not until more than a year later, in April 2021, that he was able to return home to his family.
Despite being free of the virus, he had suffered long-lasting damage to his organs and required daily care at home.
In 2021, Good Morning Britain presenter Garraway won a prize at the National Television Awards for the documentary Finding Derek, about her family’s experience during the pandemic.
