London - After being given as little as 18 months to live with brain cancer, Sophie George dreaded the thought of her daughter growing up without a mother.
So in a heart-wrenching effort to remain at her child’s side even after death, she has written a series of letters to guide one-year-old Marcie through life.
George, 27, began composing the emotional notes after learning her cancer could not be cured.
They will be handed over at milestones in Marcie’s life, such as her wedding day and on each birthday, by her father, George’s fiance Jay Godfrey.
"I’m telling her that I’ll always be watching over her," she said. "They will be for those times when she needs her Mum and so that she has got something of me to keep my memory alive."
In one letter for when Marcie starts school, George writes: "Today is your first day of big school and even though Mummy isn’t there to hold your hand or kiss you goodbye as you go in to your class, I will be watching over you and keeping you safe."
She tells Marcie there is a tissue sprayed with her scent "to remind you of Mummy" and that "Mummy will always love you very much".
George, who was diagnosed with a stage four brain tumour in February, said: "It scares me every day that I won’t be with her.
"I’m only in my twenties and you don’t ever think you’ll be facing something like this. It makes you cherish the little things and be grateful for every moment."
Doctors initially dismissed her concerns when she began suffering crippling headaches this year, before an MRI scan revealed a near two-inch tumour on her brain. "I remember thinking it would be fine," she said. "I thought they’d remove it and it would be okay. I never thought for one minute it would be what it was."
Despite a six-hour operation, doctors concluded the tumour was incurable and told her she may have as little as 18 months to live. She said: "It was heart-breaking. I wouldn’t see my little baby grow up. She’d just turned one and a half and I was thinking that I will never see her go to school."