Read Online Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse - Free Book Online Page B

lung cancer.’ When Amy opened the front door of her flat I choked out the words before we fell into each other’s arms, sobbing.
    Alex moved into my mum’s flat in Barnet for a couple of months to be with her, and when he moved out Jane and I took his place. We wanted to make sure she was never on her own because there had been a mix-up with one of my mum’s prescriptions: she had inadvertently been taking ten times the correct dose of one particular drug. It had spaced her out to such an extent that we thought the cancer must have spread to her brain. Once we discovered the mistake and rectified it, she was back to normal within a couple of days.
    All of the things that you would normally associate with lung cancer didn’t apply in my mum’s case. She was a bit breathless so she had an oxygen machine, but other than that she was very comfortable. During the last three months of her life she actually improved – well, outwardly she did. Then one evening in May 2006 I came home to find her on the floor. She’d had a fall. She didn’t appear too bad, but I called the paramedics just to be on the safe side. They took her to Barnet General Hospital, and while they were checking her over there, she looked at me and said, ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough.’
    I asked what she meant.
    â€˜I’ve had enough,’ she said.
    I told her not to be silly, that after a good night’s sleep she’d feel better and I’d be taking her home the following day.
    â€˜I’ve had enough,’ she repeated. And those were the last words my mother ever spoke to me. That night she fell into a coma and a day and a half later she passed away peacefully.
    I felt awful because my mother had asked me to stay with her, and once she was asleep I’d gone home for a couple of hours’ rest.
    â€˜Don’t be silly, Dad,’ Amy said. ‘She was in a coma.’
    My mother’s death had an enormous impact on Amy and Alex. Alex went into a state of depression and withdrew into himself, and Amy was unusually quiet. But the depth of Amy’s sorrow didn’t surprise me. Five days after my mum died my friend Phil’s sister Hilary got married for the first time, aged sixty, to a lovely guy called Claudio. Although we were in mourning, we felt we should go to the wedding. Jane, Amy and I went, but Alex couldn’t face it. Weeks before the wedding Amy and I had been asked to sing at the reception. My wedding present to them was a pianist. I’d worked with him before so I didn’t need to rehearse with him. That night I got up and sang. It was only a few days after my mum had passed away so it was difficult, but I managed it.
    Then Amy got up to sing and just couldn’t. She couldn’t sing in front of the guests, she was too upset. Instead, she went into another room with the microphone, so the guests couldn’t see her, and sang a few songs from there. Although she sounded fantastic, I could hear the pain in her voice.
    â€˜Dad, I don’t know how you could get up in front of all those people and sing,’ she said to me afterwards. ‘You’ve got balls of brass!’
    I’ve always been able to put my emotions to one side, but Amy couldn’t. She loved singing, but I’ve never felt that she really loved performing.
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    After Frank came out, Amy would begin a performance at a gig by walking onstage, clapping and chanting, ‘Class-A drugs are for mugs. Class-A drugs are for mugs …’
    She’d get the whole audience to join in until they’d all be clapping and chanting as she launched into her first number. Although Amy was smoking cannabis, she had always been totally against class-A drugs. Blake Fielder-Civil changed that.
    Amy first met him early in 2005 at the Good Mixer pub in Camden. None of Amy’s friends that I’ve spoken to over the years can remember