Kelsey Parker has revealed the heartbreaking question her daughter asked her about her late husband Tom.
The Wanted star sadly passed away on March 30 last year aged 33, after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
The singer had been married to his longtime love Kelsey since 2018, and the couple shared two young children – Aurelia, 3, and Bodhi, 2.
During her appearance on Loose Women, the panel discussed the fine line between maintaining a normal life for your children while also trying to keep a loved one’s memory alive.
The mum-of-two admitted: “Yeah it definitely is that. Obviously it’s not normal for them and now Aurelia does ask me like why her best friend has got a dad and she’s not got a dad.”
“I’m getting those questions already. I know those questions are going to progress and they’re going to turn into different questions.”
“It’s just really difficult obviously being a solo parent.”
When asked if she’s had advice on how to deal with these situations, Kelsey said: “I’ve had advice, but also for me, naturally what has come for me is to be honest.”
“Be as honest as you possibly can. You have got a dad, your dad is not here though darling. What else can I say to her?”
In a recent interview with The UK Sun, the 33-year-old recalled telling her children that Tom had passed away.
Kelsey said: “It is the hardest conversation we ever had to have. I knew Tom was going to die because his breathing had changed.”
Kelsey continued: “The day he was going to die I said to her (Aurelia), ‘I am going to the hospice to see Dad because I have got to make sure the angels take him today’.”
“We came back in the evening and in the morning I said, ‘Daddy isn’t here any more. He is in the sky with the angels and the butterflies’. They accepted it but now we get a lot of questions.”
“Aurelia will ask, ‘Why has my best friend got a dad and I haven’t got a dad any more?’ I say, ‘You do have a dad, he is not here’.”
Kelsey called upon others to speak openly about loss, and said: “I think death should be normalised. I don’t know why we don’t want to talk about it.”
“Maybe because we have lived it, it is normal to us. People ask me if I have been to counselling but I feel like I have counselled myself.”
“I will ring my mum and say, ‘This has really upset me today’, or ‘This is how I am feeling’. Me and Tom used to speak a lot — we were together for 13 years.”
“The time we spent together talking, even towards the end helps, it releases you. Talking gets me through the days, talking to other people, even talking to parents of sick children about what we have learned on our journey,” she continued.
“My journey with Tom was 18 months, and everything I have learned in that 18 months. If I can help 50 people I will know Tom did not die in vain.”
The mum-of-two also revealed how she gets “signs” from Tom.
“I speak to him a lot and I ask him questions and he will send signs back to me,” she explained.
“One of my friends bought my children two Build-A-Bear teddies, one with a song from Tom and one with his favourite song in it. And at night, sometimes the bear with Tom’s song inside it will just start to play. It is like, ‘Oh my God’.”
“Even when I trekked the Sahara for charity, I got to the top of this dune and there was a butterfly. I say to the children, ‘Daddy is with the butterflies’. A butterfly… in the Sahara desert.”
