’s ex-girlfriend Safiyya Vorajee has opened up about the final day she spent with daughter Azaylia before she died.
on April 24, 2021 after battling a rare and aggressive form of – acute myeloid leukaemia – for most of her life.
Her parents had tirelessly fought to save her life, including launching a GoFundMe where they raised more than £1million in just 24 hours for special treatment in Singapore.
However, Azaylia’s illness was already far too advanced for the treatment and was thus unable to fly out to the centre.
Since then, Safiyya and Ashley have used some of the money to set up The Azaylia Foundation, which aims to raise awareness for childhood cancer and to help other young children battling the disease.
As she prepares to mark the first anniversary of Azaylia’s death, an extract from Safiyya’s book Loving And Losing You reveals the moment she realised it was too late to save her baby girl.
‘It was April 24, 2021, and I took one look at Azaylia and knew that this was the day,’ Safiyya writes .
‘She was pale and had a vulnerable look about her. Her breathing had become very slow and shallow. When her breaths finally stopped coming, Ashley and I lay either side of her on the bed, wrapping our arms around her gently. “We love you”,we told her. “We love you, Azaylia”.’
Safiyya, 34, also details the coping mechanism she and then-partner Ashley, 31, developed amid their grief.
‘We were in a different kind of survival mode now,’ she writes. ‘When I finally pulled myself out of bed, I could barely get showered and dressed. We didn’t know what to do or how to cope, and we stayed in the house together, existing as best we could.’
‘Our aim was not only to help individual children reach their life-saving goals, but to invest in cancer research and innovative treatments to revolutionise care and treatment options for children fighting cancer in the UK,’ she added.
in a joint statement earlier this month, but remain close and vow to continue supporting each other.
