Diane Abbott MP: 'The letter I wish I had written'

On Monday, Diane Abbott MP wrote the letter below for the Times Newspaper column -  'The Letter I Wish I Had Written'. She writes:

Mummy,

You have been evasive about your illness and the results of your recent hospital tests for too long. That is why I asked for an appointment with your consultant.

So today I learnt, for the first time, that you have stomach cancer and only a few months to live. You yourself are a trained nurse. So you would have understood, all along, the nature of your illness.

I appreciate that you wanted to protect your daughter from the knowledge. But I am a grown woman in her thirties, a Member of Parliament even, and I needed to know the truth.

Looking back, there are so many things that I regret about our relationship .I wish that I had moaned less about family visits. I did not understand that the links you were building for me with family, community and culture were beyond price.

I am sorry that, as an adolescent, I was so full of myself that I never really appreciated the security and stability you gave me as a child. I thought I knew so much more than you. But as time has gone on I realise how much you knew and how little I understood.

I wish I had valued your qualities more: your kindness, your patience, your endurance and your courage. Instead of fancying myself so different (and better) than you I wish I had understood how lucky I was to inherit so much from you. And this includes your intelligence.  

In pre-war rural Jamaica there were no opportunities for bright black girls. You had to leave school at fourteen. Eventually you set sail from the Caribbean to become a nurse in Britain. But, if you had enjoyed my opportunities, what might you have achieved.

You have only a few months left. I want to make them happy months. But above all, I want to say something that I have never said before.

I love you.

Diane