Terminally Ill Celebrity Wants Sons to Know Jesus
LONDON – British reality TV star Jade Goody says she's "ready to go to Heaven" after marrying boyfriend Jack Tweed and christening her sons this past Sunday.
The 27-year-old celebrity, who was told earlier this month that her cervical cancer had spread to other parts of her body, has only months to live and said Sunday was the "happiest day" of her life.
"Now I'm ready to go to Heaven," she told OK! Magazine after the wedding service.
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Goody was diagnosed with cervical cancer last summer and revealed earlier this month that her cancer had spread to her liver, bowel and groin. After doctors at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London declared her cancer as terminal and that she could be dead within weeks, Goody made it her priority to secure her sons' future – both financially and spiritually.
"It's really important to me now that they learn about Jesus and I want them to be christened so they still feel I'm there for them," she said in an exclusive interview with the London-based Daily Mirror.
Goody said she wanted to christen her sons – Bobby, 5, and Freddy, 4 – so that they understand that their mother is going to be looking down on them from Heaven.
Goody also said she plans to put together a memory box to help remind her boys of who she was and the things they had done together after she is gone.
"And maybe when they're older it will help them remember," she said.
Though Goody had a reputation for being "loud-mouthed," "ignorant," "selfish," and "self-promoting" when she starred in the U.K. reality show Celebrity Big Brother, her cervical cancer changed all that with help from the Bible that she's been reading avidly for comfort and strength.
"I've always thought there's a God although I've never been a churchy kind of person but now I think, 'Why not go to church?'" she had told the Daily Mail. "I've got a version of the Bible which is easy to read and I look through it when I'm feeling down. It really helps."
Still, while she says she's been learning a lot through her reading, at least one question remains.
"I want to ask God why He couldn't have given me more time with my boys," she said.
"Just enough to hear them laugh a few more times, to see that they're happy, to write them long letters so I can tell them who I was and how much I loved them and remind them about all the things we did together."
Until the day she gets to ask the question, Goody intends to do as much as she can to secure the future of her sons, including setting up a trust to pay for their education.
"I want them to have the best life possible," Goody said. "I know I'm ignorant, but I'm going to make sure my boys are not. I will make sure they have the best education… and they will always know that it's what their mum did for them."
"That will be my legacy to them. It's all I can do now," she continued. "Hopefully, they will always remember that I did my best for them."
Although some have criticized Goody's decision to make her cancer battle so open to the media, the reality star has gained support from many more, including Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who called her "a brave woman" and said "she needs our prayers."
"A lot of people might say, 'Well, it's better if she did everything in quiet,' but I think she's made a decision that she wants the last months of her life to teach people something," he told Sky News.
"She wants society to know something about the terrible disease that cancer is, and to find better ways of dealing with it," he added.
Cancer Research UK, the United Kingdom's leading cancer charity, said it had received thousands of more visitors than usual on the cervical cancer page of its website after Goody's diagnosis last August.
Goody has also said previously that she wants her plight to publicize cervical cancer so that more women will not have to go through what she has gone through.
Christian Today reporter Anne Thomas in London contributed to this report.
