Kate Garraway says it was a “time-stopping” moment when she learned her husband Derek Draper was dying.
The TV star made an emotional appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday, just three days after laying her husband to rest at a funeral, where she described her “outpouring of love for everyone who has supported me”.
He emerged from his home with bouquets of flowers and Lego in the background and joked: “Let’s own this mess and get on with it, Lego and chaos.”
He expressed his gratitude for the messages he received from viewers, as well as a book of condolence consisting of three baskets of cards from viewers and the ITV team.
He said: “This is truly surprising. It feels like my emotions are at 110%. The incredible love we all have as a GMB family is truly amazing. We are very lucky.
“The love that we all have together as a family, people watching at home, we are so bonded together.
“And we were always connected through all our joys, all our fun, and life’s challenges, which poor Derek faced head-on and our family faced, too.
“But getting these messages makes me cry because I feel so grateful.
“I also realize there are people this morning who don’t have that feeling of love. And I want to share this with you because I know there will be people going to funerals today, people who will hear terrible diagnoses today, people who will face the worst today.
“And I’m really thinking of them because I know how they feel and I’m lucky to have you all.”
Names such as former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, musician Sir Elton John and Labor Party leader Sir Keir Starmer attended Draper’s funeral.
The service was held at St Mary The Virgin Church in Primrose Hill, north-west London, on Friday.
Draper, the former political lobbyist-turned-psychologist, married the GMB presenter at the same church in September 2005.
Draper became seriously ill during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and spent 13 months in hospital before being discharged.
He died on January 3 at the age of 56, following long-standing coronavirus symptoms.
When asked how she managed to keep it together while caring for her husband for four years, she said: “I’m not sure I did it very well. I guess like all of us, I trusted everyone.
“I think I owe a huge debt to a lot of people, and especially to Derek, because his spirit and his fight to keep going never once said: ‘I don’t want to try. I do not want to do this. I do not want to do this.’
“There are no children either. The kids were outstanding from start to finish.”
Reflecting on how she felt when she was told Draper would not survive a serious setback in his health, she said: “It was one of those ‘stop-the-clock’ moments where you wish the world would stop.
“And I think the emptiness you feel at that point is because for four years you’ve been completely focused on: What am I supposed to do next? What can I do for Derek, what’s happening to the kids? All of this is suffocating you.
“I think: true, we were told it was 24 hours, and it turned out that he had been fighting for more than a month and continued to fight, but the prognosis was that he would not be able to overcome it.
“And it’s a challenge because they’ve heard that so many times for kids when they hear doctors say he’s not going to make it out of this.
“We knew Derek could still hear even though he couldn’t open his eyes, so it was hard to make sure he knew he wasn’t going to let us down because he didn’t get over that last one.”
She noted that both children had been spending time on their own with their father, adding: “Darcey said: ‘If you can’t do this, we’ll be fine,’ and I thought that was incredibly brave.”
The couple’s daughter Darcey served as a pallbearer at the ceremony, and Garraway said: “He insisted on doing it and I thought it was a beautiful thing.”
As for Darcey and her son Billy, he added: “Their pain will continue, we are at the foot of the mountain, we know there is a long way to go.”
However, he stated that he was looking to the future and added: “A new life begins now. I don’t quite know how it will happen. But grief cannot be contained in a day, a month, or a year.
“I think some people say: why are you going back to work? Everyone has to do this, right? Life must begin.”
Paying tribute to carers, he said: “We have so many bright minds and so much talent in our medical profession, but we need a different system for support, for care, but also for everything that really happens when you’re not ready to care at the moment of life and death.
“It needs to change and hopefully it will.
“But I think people who watch them from a compassionate position will know two things; How incredibly difficult, but what an honor, and how I wish I had cared today.
“Because being the line of defense against the world is an incredible thing.”
Garraway will return to the table on the ITV show on Thursday and joke: “I’ll be looking forward to the blow dry.
“I’ll find false eyelashes. I can’t wait to apply fake tan.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be a little more respectable by Thursday. I’m going to do a lot of homework from now on because I feel like I’m in such a small bubble.
“So I’m really going to be looking forward to coming out into the world and sharing what’s going on for everyone and reconnecting with everyone.
“Thank you for taking me back and be patient. I might be a little rusty… There’s a new king, right? Did I make it up to this?”
He added that he had received “extraordinary” condolence messages from unexpected places.
Garraway said: “I received the most beautiful letter from David and Victoria Beckham; handwritten, beautiful handwriting… This was Darcey’s observation.
“And from the royal family – Catherine and William sent a lovely letter and I know Catherine herself is in hospital.
“Even the King, because there is someone who knows grief, that antecedent grief where you know there is a risk of something happening and how different it is when it happens.”