A loving mum who beamed with joy at seeing her son marry has passed away two days after the ceremony. Mairi Macphail's son Stuart brought his wedding forward after being told his mother had little time left after being diagnosed with cancer.
Mairi herself had married her long-term partner David Keatley just two weeks earlier after their wedding was also brought forward. They married on Easter Saturday after doctors warned the 66-year-old wouldn't make it to the original date later this month.
Her son Stuart followed suit. Though she was not well enough to go to the service in Redditch on Wednesday she was able to watch via a FaceTime link.
David, 65, told BirminghamLive how his wife was dozing until the nuptials began but then woke to enjoy them. He said: "Mairi was snoozing until the Facetime link became active.
"Then she was very much alert for the ceremony and clapped when they were pronounced husband and wife. A beaming smile of joy came across her face. She then went back to sleep contented it was job done."
After the wedding, the family were told Mairi had just hours to live. They gathered around her bed in the dining room and took turns to hold her hand.
Two days later, on Friday morning, April 29, she died surrounded by her family. "Moments before passing her daughter Louise freshened Mairi up and brushed her hair. She looked as beautiful as ever," added David.
"Three minutes later her life on this earth ended, contented, with a smile on her face. May she rest in peace and rise in glory into God's kingdom and everlasting life."
Mairi was suffering from symptoms for three or four months before she went for a check-up at the doctors. She felt an uncomfortable feeling in her side alongside bloating, but thought it was irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Medics carried out blood tests before they saw Mairi, with the results later showing "something wasn't right". David, who was a Villa season ticket holder alongside his wife, added: "When the doctor examined her, he said: 'I think you've got some sort of tumour and, quite frankly, it's the largest tumour I've ever come across'. It was 14cm at that point.
Mairi underwent chemotherapy from June until September in the hope of shrinking the large tumour, with the possibility of surgery if it reduced in size. But a scan in September confirmed it had grown.
"It grew to 19cm. It had laughed in our face and said: 'I'm still growing'," David had previously told BirminghamLive. "We called it Boris to start with, now we call it Putin because it's really nasty now.
"At that time in September, a doctor said she'd never seen a lady with a tumour the size she'd got look so well."
After the news, the couple began searching for drug trials, but all four were unsuitable for Mairi's rare type of cancer - and the stage it was at. Another bout of chemotherapy began from October until early January.
"Another scan found it hadn't shrunk, it had grown a bit more to 21cm," her husband explained. "They stopped it, there was no point of carrying on putting more poison into her body. She then spent from mid-January to mid-February in hospital; her temperature kept spiking.
"Eventually it took a long time to rule things out, including sepsis. Temperatures were coming from the tumour.
"When she was in hospital she lost weight, I saw her once because I couldn't see her. She came out of hospital and she was visibly weaker. It was then decided the only course was to have palliative care. They could do things to try to prolong her life."
After medical advice to bring their wedding day forward, Mairi and David obtained a special licence and moved it from May 15 to Easter Saturday. Their wedding, held at Saint Barnabas Parish Church in Erdington, "couldn't have gone better", he said.
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