Twin girls are receiving touching birthday messages from their late father after he left behind 30 years’ worth of cards for his beloved girls.
In a touching gesture, Nick Keenan from Linfield, penned future birthday cards for his daughter Rose and Sophia, when they were just 17 months old.
The father-of-two was tragically dying from a brain tumor but wanted his twins to have birthday messages from his every year, in echoes of the plot of the popular Cecilia Ahern novel P.S. I Love You!, which was turned into a film starring Hilary Swank.
The girls recently opened their fourth birthday card from him, where he told them they’d start school soon and to look after each other.
He tragically passed away aged 34 in November 2020, nine months after being told his tumor had developed into a glioblastoma (GBM).
In a heartwarming gesture, Nick Keenan, from Linfield, wrote birthday cards for his twin daughters for the next 30 years, while dying from a brain tumor
Sophia and Rose recently celebrated their fourth birthday where they both opened a card from their late father
Nick’s wife, Victoria Keenan, conceived their twin girls through IVF treatment
Story: In the movie, Hilary Swank portrayed a widow named Holly Kennedy, who gets messages her late husband Gerry (Gerard Butler) left to aid her emotional recovery in the wake of his passing
Nick was diagnosed with a tennis ball-size astrocytoma in 2015 after weeks of suffering with shooting pins and needles down his right arm.
He underwent two debulking surgeries, radiotherapy, infusion and oral chemotherapy, prescription cannabinoids and a number of natural remedies.
Nick’s wife Victoria said: ‘Nick was everyone’s rock, and very much mine.’
‘He was incredibly strong and went to work every day of his radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which I was inspired by.’
‘He also managed to support me going through IVF like any good husband would, even though he was going through much bigger things. It was never about him.’
‘He was consoling others as he was dying and he wrote our girls, Rose and Sophia, birthday cards for the first 30 years of their lives.’
‘He wanted to be with them in spirit as they celebrated their birthdays without him.’
‘Hopefully, it will give them a better idea of where he was at that stage in his life.’
Nick was diagnosed with a tennis ball-size astrocytoma in 2015 after experiencing shooting pins and needles down his right arm
He sadly passed away aged 34 in November 2020, nine months after being told his tumour had developed into a glioblastoma
Nick wanted his daughters to have birthday cards from him so he could be their in spirit on their special days
Nick was told by doctors in March 2020 that he probably had less than a year to live
Victoria, was at the gym when Nick returned from a business trip early and said he was going to hospital.
The 35-year-old said: ‘When I walked in the room and saw Nick had been crying, I knew that something was wrong.’
‘They sat me down and told me they’d found a lesion the size of a tennis ball on the left side of his brain, in the middle of his frontal lobe.’
‘They said it was slow-growing and had probably been there since he was born.’
Nick’s surgery and subsequent radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment went so well that he and Victoria decided to move forward with their plans to start a family.
Victoria said: ‘We just carried on with life as normal and thought we were winning, which is when we decided to go ahead with IVF.’
‘Then, in December 2019, when our girls were just six months old, Nick noticed his speech had become slurred.’
‘We contacted the doctor and ended up going back in after Christmas.’
‘I’d had a really weird gut feeling that it was going to be our last Christmas and so organized the biggest celebration by inviting everybody to come and stay with us.’
‘In March 2020 we found out his tumor had developed into a glioblastoma (GBM) and were told he probably had less than a year to live.
‘In fact, Nick lasted nine months from that GBM diagnosis.’
Nick underwent further treatment and was being considered for a clinical trial when he was told nothing more that could be done.
After becoming unconscious at home one night in November 2020, Nick was taken into a local hospice where he died the following morning.
Victoria said: ‘My parents dropped everything to look after the girls, who were sleeping, and I slept in a bed in the same room as Nick at the hospice, head to toe with his mum.’
‘I believe the last thing he remembered was being at home with his family. He never really knew he went into the hospice and died at 4am the next morning.
‘I came home at 6am, washed and carried on being mummy to our 17-month-old daughters, knowing that daddy wasn’t with us anymore.’
Victoria bought Nick a miniature dachshund puppy following his diagnosis. That pup, named Poppy, died six months after Nick did, also to a brain tumor.
‘I just couldn’t believe it; they were inseparable and I think she was sent to look after him so went with him,’ said Victoria, who is now urging people to sign a charity’s petition.
She is campaigning alongside Brain Tumor Research to help its petition to increase research funding reach 100,000 signatures, in the hope of prompting a parliamentary debate.
To sign and share the petition before it closes at the end of October 2023, go to www.braintumourresearch.org/petition
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