Lynda Bellingham's last words to her sons: "I love you both so much it hurts" - letter read out at funeral
Lynda Bellingham's two sons, Michael and Robbie, read out a heart-breaking letter from their mother at her funeral today.
The poignant last words from the TV star and actress detailed her "pride and joy" at both of her sons and how she would "be watching" them throughout their lives.
She wrote of how the lads should support and care for each other in her absence, joking: "If I thought you weren't going to help each other through this I would die, ha ha."
Lynda, who was buried after a ceremony at St Bartholomew's Church in Crewkerne, explained how her decision to end chemotherapy treatement was "the only thing I had left to myself" and asked her sons to respect her decision.
The brothers finished by together telling the church: "As she always told us on a bad day, 'Onwards and upwards sons, tomorrow's another day and don't let the buggers get you down'."
Lynda's moving letter read:
"Michael there is a photo of you as a baby and I seem to be presenting you to the world and you are responding beautifully, like the actor you are, with a big, beaming smile.
"We both look very sparkly, if you can understand my meaning and then there is a photo of you and Robbie when he was a baby, arriving five years later, and here I am trying to present my new son and you are having none of it.
"You are gazing into the camera slightly miffed and a bit uncertain of what is required of you and I am looking a bit unsure of my abilities to make you feel secure.
"And I look sad and that's how it was in 1980. I am not going to go back over wasted years but I guess they have to be taken into equation of where you both are today.
"I take responsibility for giving you your life, well I take some of the responsibility, and I also take pride and joy in how you have both turned out. You are both so different, yet from the same mould.
"I love you both so much it hurts. I think it is hard to make you understand how emotion works in women because as far as I can make out men are so much more uncomplicated.
"I don't mean that in a derogatory way at all. Men need very little to make them happy where women need to pick and unpick and put back together again.
"I wish I had been tougher with both of you with the obvious stuff but I really thought you were both clever enough to see what had to be done.
"If you didn't do your homework you would fail your exams and if you didn't tell the truth you would push each other away and if you do bad things they will come back to haunt you.
"However, somehow you have managed to reach a point where this has become clear to you and now you can move forward and make great lives for yourselves.
"The terrible truth is that I will not be there to enjoy it. I am sorry but if you have a little spirituality in you, you will believe that I will be watching.
"When my dad and mum died so soon after each other I felt like an orphan, but I did have you both to look after.
"Michael, you have Sasha and he does really need you. I know you have no nice added extras like a lovely home or money to take him places but they will come, have faith in yourself
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