Former drummer Steve Doneathy mourns for the loss of his loving wife singer Bernie Nolan, beloved mother of their daughter Erin, who loss her battle to cancer at the age of 52.
In April 2010 that Nolan was suffering from breast cancer, which spread to her lymph nodes. Six months later Bernie stated that she was cancer-free after having undergone chemotherapy and a mastectomy, and was taking Herceptin. In February 2012, She said she was cancer free and no longer taking any drugs, sadly in October 2012, Bernie announced that the cancer had returned and was incurable after it had spread to her liver, bones, lungs and brain.
Bernie was being taken care in a hospice, she came back home to be with her family for her finals days, she passed away peacefully on the morning of July 4th, 2013 at her home surrounded by her beautiful family.
Bernie’s memoir Now and Forever is the story of how she battle with cancer, talks about the role people close to her heart helped her cope with her health and how they fulfill all of her life expectations, among those people certainly are her adoring daughter Erin and her best friend, her soul mate her husband Steve Doneathy..
“Steve is the love of my life. I don’t know what I did to deserve him but my life has been made very special by knowing him. Erin is a blessing from God. I loved her from the first moment I held her in my arms.”
“The way she’s coped with her illness is awe-inspiring and I know the disease will never beat Bernie’s spirit because she is so strong.” Some of the lines Steve wrote in Bernie’s memoir when she became to ill to write.
The love story of Bernie and Steve began back in 1991 when she and the Nolans were playing at the Butlins in Ayr and their keyboardist suggested to call drummer Steve Doneathy when their drummer didn’t showed up.
They became close and fell for each other, on May 25, 1996 they got married in Lancashire. A year later Bernie and Steve suffered the loss of a stillborn daughter, and two years after that their gorgeous girl was born, they named her Erin Kate, her second name is in memory of her older sister who in May, 1998 was diagnosed with Edwards syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder and was stillborn five and a half months into the pregnancy.
On their 25th anniversary, Steve posted the following message on Facebook.
Steve Doneathy saw his life upside down when he was told his wife was losing her battle to cancer, and how hard it was for him to tell Bernie the sad news..
“A nurse took me into another room, and told me we were looking at an end-of-life situation. My whole world turned upside down in a second…”
“I went in (to see Nolan) and said, ‘The doctors think you’re very, very poorly, and you’re not getting better’. Straight away, like I knew she would, she said, ‘Am I going to die?’ I told her yes. She was quiet. She didn’t say anything for about 30 seconds. And then she said, ‘F**k’. She was quietly angry. And then we cried, hugged and said we loved each other.”
Find Steve Doneathy on Facebook here.
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