The Repair Shop’s Suzie Fletcher revealed the poignant final moments she shared with her husband, Jamie, also known as Rob, before he passed away from pancreatic cancer at 52 in her 2013 memoir.
In the memoir, she wrote that Rob became lucid and spoke his last words while mimicking steering wheel movements with his arms.
The Repair Shop star wrote: “On Monday morning, Rob became quite lucid and started talking. ‘Baby blue,’ he repeated a few times, ‘Brum, brum, brum, drive.’ The words were clear, but the meaning was not. And while he was speaking, his arms were going up and then down.”
Suzie continued, describing how Rob’s lungs began filling with fluid later that afternoon, prompting a desperate attempt to drain them. She said that as his life slipped away, Rob locked eyes with her, and in a fleeting instant, he was gone.
Suzie has been very open about her life with her late-husband, both the good and the ba (Image: BBC/Ricochet/Guy Levy)
Suzie added: “In the afternoon, we were joined by Rob’s mum and niece. But Rob was unsettled and his lungs were filling with fluid. One of the sisters went to get a bowl and I lent him forward over it so his lungs could drain.
“None of it was pleasant and we were all very upset. It went on and on until one of the girls suggested I sit Rob up. Rob struggled to communicate, but somehow, we knew he was ready to go,” reports GloucestershireLive.
Suzie Fletcher recalled: “As we sat him up, I was looking right into Rob’s eyes. A moment later, he looked past me and something changed in him – it was like he’d seen something.”
She continued: “And then he looked back at me and a moment later he was gone. In the final exchange of looks it felt like I saw the life go out of his eyes. And just as it did there was this enormous howl from Bailey outside.”
According to Suzie, The Repair Shop’s leather expert, recounting the experience in vivid detail, helped her better understand the significance of the final words and actions during Rob’s passing.
Reflecting on his last moments when speaking to Gail and she understood the meaning, when recounting what had happened.
When Suzie said how much he had been moving his arms up and down and looking up before moving his arms, Gail interpreted as “‘The car reference we as him getting ready to go on his journey…And when his armed whooshed down it was a waterfall and when they whooshed up it was him going up to heaven…When he looked at you, he gave you the light, he gave you that gift.'”.
Suzie also said: “It was a beautiful way of thinking about death and one that has stayed with me.”
