Learning to live from dying son

By Gemma Ryall
BBC News

As charity founder Sarah Cornelius prepares for the 10th anniversary of her seven-year-old son Joshua's death, she looks back at how he inspired her and so many others.

Joshua and Sarah Cornelius travelled the world after he was diagnosed.

As a woman who travelled, studied international criminal law and worked as a lecturer, Sarah Cornelius had a full life.

But she says it was only when she found out her seven-year-old son Joshua was dying from cancer that she truly learnt how to live.

It was just over 10 years ago that she and Joshua sat in the Planet Hollywood restaurant in London, having been told that the little boy did not have much longer to live.

But rather than wallow in self-pity, Joshua asked his mother if she could arrange for his friends on the oncology ward in Llandough Hospital in the Vale of Glamorgan to also visit the restaurant.

It planted the seed of an idea in Ms Cornelius's head and The Joshua Foundation was born.

A decade on, the charity, which provides holidays and life-changing experiences for children with terminal illnesses, has gone on to raise over £5m and help thousands of youngsters and their families.

On 4 December - the day that Joshua died in 1998 - 340 schoolchildren from across south Wales will join together at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff to perform Joshua's life story.

Organised by Ms Cornelius, who is chief executive of the charity, it will feature a compilation of his favourite songs from films including The Lion King and artists including Celine Dion and Michael Jackson.

Joshua was such a vibrant character... he was constantly on the go Sarah Cornelius

For Ms Cornelius, the anniversary concert will be met with mixed feelings - sorrow for the loss of her son but also pride at what his memory has inspired.

And it will be a celebration of the fact that running the charity has given her a purpose to carry on when others might have given up.

"I find it hard to comprehend that it's 10 years since my son died," said Ms Cornelius who is 40 and lives in Cardiff Bay.

"The charity keeps me going. I see a lot of families whose lives fall apart after the death of a child. Having the charity made me deal with my grief in a different way.

"I think of the way Joshua was when he was ill. I don't want to lock myself away and feel sorry for myself."

After Joshua was diagnosed with a very rare form of abdominal cancer at the end of 1997, Ms Cornelius decided to fill the remainder of his life with travel and fun.

Together the pair went to California, New York, Florida, Lapland, Israel and took four trips to Euro Disney - she called it "a whirlwind of living".

And she saw the benefits it had for Joshua - his energy and constant tan fooled people into not realising how ill he actually was.

Awards

"With Joshua you would never have known he was ill," said Ms Cornelius.

"People used to think he had alopecia when he had lost his hair, not cancer. He was very fit despite being so ill.

"I learnt to live from my seven-year-old son."

Her drive to ensure other terminally ill children have as full a life as possible has become all-encompassing for Ms Cornelius.

She started the charity from her parent's bedroom in Caerphilly. But it now has a staff of 15, offices in Cardiff and a cafe - Comfortably Numb - in the city centre.

The Joshua Foundation also works with 11 paediatric oncology units in the UK and has close working links with two overseas units - Melbourne Children's Hospital and Haddasah Hospital, Jerusalem

Her achievements have been recognised with awards, including the Welsh Woman of the Year accolade, which she was given in 2003.

But she says she does not do what she does for recognition - she does it for her son.

"Joshua was such a vibrant character. What I do now is Joshua - this level of energy. I'm sure I used to have Saturday off - but that's all gone out of the window," she said.

"Joshua was constantly on the go. Now I literally don't have a cut-off point [in my work] on a Friday and start again on a Monday. We have events on all of the time.

"You have to go on with living."