PART ONE PART TWO
You will know everything you need to know about Sue when I tell you that while looking after 6 kids, she still wanted to work as a teaching assistant in a primary school: “I just love being around the kids, watching them grow,” she explains. No kidding…
As I already mentioned, Sue met her future husband while being involved in Sea Cadets, she was 26.
“My dad was heavily involved in it. He was in submarines when he was younger. I’d left a little bit because my father had passed away, and I just didn’t fancy it anymore. I kind of went away and just didn’t do that anymore. And then one day I thought, you know what, it’s Remembrance Weekend. I thought, I’m going to go back down to the unit and just maybe get involved again, you know.
“Cam used to run the band down at Crawley, which is the town just down the road from here. And then we met, and that was it. Rest is history, ” she smiles.
Sue experienced the traumatic loss of both parents at a young age – her father when she was 21, followed by her mother, who suffered a sudden heart attack right after Cam and Sue decided to get married.
Initially hesitant about having children, but desired to replicate the mother-daughter bond she had with her own mother, she decided that having a girl could be a great thing.
“I was reluctant at first, but, being a good salesman, he had good arguments, and I wanted a girl…”
In comes Curtis …
“And it was like the best thing ever” she smiles.
Then Cam said, ‘oh, you know, we should have another one. we need to have two. And I then thought, I don’t want a girl. I know what boys are like now. It’s easy. Boom. Another little boy, Perry.
Then he said, ‘we should go for one more. We should try for girls’. And we got a girl, Torrie.”
But they didn’t stop there, did they.
“When Torrie was 2, Cam said, well, let’s go for one more before we get too old, , if we want one, it will be now. So we did. And then, Fertile Myrtle and Mr Super Sperm, we produce not one, not two but three boys, don’t we? Just like that!!”
Bailey, Heston and Sumner joined the Malik fun…
The Elephant in the Room – Sumner
I hadn’t realised that Sumner – the little Angel that died a few years back – was actually one of triplets. By the time I was him, the disease had prevented him from growing up at the same pace as his brothers, I guess. I was stunned when Sue pointed that fact out.
“Sumner, Heston and Bailey were so close” Sue explains. “They all shared the same bedroom. When they were younger, they had all three separate cots in the bedroom. One day, I heard a lot of noise, so I rushed to the room: they moved the cots and managed to get into the same one together.”
That day with Sue, outside in the garden, with a few dozen of tea cups, in the sun, around a white table, we talked, and talked and talked. About Sumner. We cried a lot. We laughed a bit too. How to you summarise the life, the suffering, the passing of a young lad that had his whole life ahead of him?
It started…
Around the age of 10-11, Sumner began experiencing unusual symptoms, including issues with vision and sensitivity to noise. After worsening symptoms, he was admitted to hospital. Tests, including a brain scan, revealed a rare and aggressive brain tumour called DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma), with a life expectancy of 6-9 months and no known cure.
The initial prognosis from the Royal Marsden Hospital offered little hope, with doctors suggesting there was not much they could do beyond palliative care. The family opted to seek private treatment with a consultant on Harley Street, which came with a “hefty price tag.”
Sue and Cam decided to tell the truth to Curtis and Perry, as they were older but not to the younger ones, especially Heston and Bailey.
Invasive treatment and fundraising
Sumner underwent a 12-hour operation to implant a port for direct infusions into the tumour area, followed by regular, painful infusions that caused significant sickness and weight loss.
The whole family changed their diet completely, cut loads of things out and try to keep our, diets as healthy as they could. If Sumner had to diet, everybody was too.
They had to fundraise extensively through cake sales, squash events, online pages, and community auctions to afford the “phenomenal amount” of money required.
“We look back and you think all those people did all those things for us”, explains Sue through tears. “The worst was to see him suffering during and after the treatments. We were thinking, what are we doing to him”
She stops. We chat about the garden, the flowers, the warm sun. Another cupper.
“You think, it’s just, not fair. Just not fair”.
Despite his illness, the family endeavoured to keep his life as normal as possible, sending him to school daily (where he was well-loved and supported) and allowing him to continue playing squash.
Although the tumour initially shrank, keeping the hope alive Sumner could get better, it later spread to his spine, making any surgical intervention impossible.
Sumner bravely completed his first year of senior school. His end-of-year assembly was profoundly emotional, with him receiving awards and giving a farewell gift to a retiring teacher.
Make a Wish to Cairo’s PSA Worlds
One day, Camron got a PSA wonderful and unexpected news: they were invited to the World Championships in 2016, a memory that deeply resonated with the children.
“We got a mail from Lee Beachill, offering us the chance to meet up with the likes of Ramy, Shabana, Nick Matthew and everyone that was out there, it was crazy, really.” explains Camron.
I was lucky enough to meet them all and they sit next to me during the finals. I even manage to make Sumner laugh – at my expenses actually – he was such a lovely cheeky boy.
But the most memorable moment will stay forever in our memories with that video of Sumner providing commentary with Joey Barrington during a match, capturing his voice before his condition worsened.
“When you get there, and you see all those people out there and everyone like yourself and Nicol David, and everyone come and sat and spoke and had pictures with him. You know, that’s going to resonate somewhere and create a memory.
“Not just a memory that we had with Sumner, but a memory of what this is about what the tour can be and how glamorous it looks and they could have that potentially.
“We were aware of the Tour, they were aware of the local stuff, but we weren’t travelling to France or Spain or anywhere like that to watch PSA, we couldn’t do that. So essentially that trip was a fantastic memory, but a real eye opener as well.” concludes Cam
Last days
The family took a final holiday to Spain despite Sumner’s rapid deterioration (limping, slurring, eye issues). They adapted, using a charity shop wheelchair, and ensuring he experienced simple joys like an ice lolly, which he had been previously restricted from due to his diet.
“We did all the place that we would normally do.” Sue remember. “The boys would pick him up, put him in the car. He did everything. On the last day, he asked if he could have an ice lolly. He hadn’t been allowed to have one, really, because of his strict diet. Still, you know, he was still a kid. So Cam gave him a size pop thing and he was like a kid in heaven.
“Sumner’s last spoken words were asking if he could have some McDonald’s fries.”
We pause.
Admitted to hospital, Sumner was placed under palliative care, and subsequently passed away, with his parents and younger brothers present.
Heston and Bailey, not fully comprehending that Sumner was passed away, tried to put his socks on, saying “come on, Sumner, put your socks on, we are going home now.”
Last goodbye
The family decorated his coffin with “sunshine” stickers. Cam played the “Last Post” on the bugle at the funeral. His ashes are kept in a blue box in their home, as the family feels “he needs to be with us.”
As I close that painful chapter, Camron’s conclusion to our interview comes back to me.
” I sometimes feel that things sometimes do happen for a reason.
“As much as I don’t want to accept it hard and harsh, those things that do happen, you have to kind of understand that you’ve got to move on and try and frame things and understand why that may have happened and try to make the best of it is the wrong word, but try and take the positives from it.
“And, one of the things that did happen, we were close anyway, but what made us closer was with all the decisions for help, what we did with some, the treatments, the diet, the alternative treatments, the alternative therapies, the fact we bought him home when he passed, the fact we were going on holiday before he passed, all those decisions we basically made as a family so we could stay in full control of his duty of care as a family to him.
“So obviously, we were close anyway. We were going to do that. But by doing that together, it definitely helped us stay strong as a family unit long term.”
Sue will never recover from the passing of her son. She decorated one of their rooms in particular with photos, sunshine stickers, and lovely memories, although he is present everywhere in the home.
She accepts that she will have to cry every day for the rest of her life. If a part of herself died that funest day, she had survived. She had five more kids to raise, to love, to protect, a husband at her side, all having to overcome an unbearable grief.
She survived because she is unbreakable.
“Sumner is remembered for his courage, selflessness, and thoughtful nature, evident even in small acts like offering his sandwich to a homeless person one day when we were in town” Sue reminices.
“His strength and determination throughout his illness left a lasting impression on all who knew him.”
RIP little Angel.
