This is, of course, the news nobody wanted to hear, the diagnosis no-one wants to receive, but outweighing all that, having to tell your children is every mother’s worst nightmare. Working out how to explain things to them must have been agony for poor Kate.
Pitching it appropriately for their different ages, attempting to be just the right mix of honest and comforting. Trying to prepare them for the road ahead without terrifying them. Reassuring them – as she will have done so many times, about so many things – that it’s going to be OK when she must be extremely frightened herself.
When my dad was diagnosed with cancer I was an adult, and it still felt impossible, but when you’re a child your parents are invincible superheroes with all the answers. What a tragic way for George, Charlotte and Louis to come crashing down to earth and discover their mum is only human after all.
And she has never seemed more human, has she? Bravely addressing the nation, being so open, emotional and vulnerable, especially in that devastating moment when she stopped speaking for a second and had to take a deep breath before being able to keep calm and carry on.
It was when she revealed she was in the early stages of chemotherapy – every time she says that out loud, it must feel a little more horribly real. Kate appealed for time, space and privacy. There’s no more detective work for online conspiracy theorists now we know the awful truth so hopefully she’ll be left in peace, to recover at her own pace.
She ended by thinking of others – everyone else whose life has been affected by cancer. “You are not alone,” she told them. Nor are you, Kate. We are all with you.