This is the heartbreaking moment an 14-year-old singer sung to his dying mother for the final time from the garden of her hospice.
Billy Devine, from Chesterfield, stood on the grass outside with his friend Ellie Scott to perform a duet of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s hit single Shallow, as well as a song he had written himself.
Jane, 51, a self-employed carer who had always loved to hear him sing, had tears in her eyes while she watched the touching performance.
The mother-of-three died a few days later from incurable breast cancer, after battling the disease for a year.
Ashgate Hospice, where Jane was cared for, said Billy performed outside so that he could use the sound equipment and because he was with a friend. But afterwards he was immediately allowed back inside to hug his mother, and for her to congratulate him.
Many hospices have struggled to allow visitors during the Covid-19 pandemic due to Government regulations, prompting the country’d leading end of life charity Marie Curie to warn that they had ‘fallen to the cracks’.
Billy had written the song earlier and the plan was to play it to her at Christmas – we have an Ashgate choir here – as a surprise.
‘But then her condition began to deteriorate and we knew she wouldn’t make it.’
Billy was allowed to visit his mother because she was receiving end of life care at the hospice, meaning she was allowed visitors from her family.
The hospice said Billy was allowed to visit his mother and share a hug in her final days and hours.