The devastated wife of Jonnie Irwin has spoken for the first time about her husband’s death, admitting it wasn’t “peaceful”.
Jess has shared that the brave TV presenter spent his last moments “fighting” to stay alive, and was in “a lot of pain”.
She said that she “hated every second” of seeing her beloved husband like that, and wished that she “hadn’t seen it”.
‘It all happened so quickly’
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Jess said that the end of Jonnie’s life all happened “so quickly”, in just six days. She said the first signs that something more serious was wrong came when Jonnie’s leg ballooned in size. The doctors took him into hospital and did a scan to see if he had a tumour on his spine. But that came back clear on the Thursday before he passed away.
They found fluid on his lung, though, and an infection in the other. So on the Friday they drained it and gave him antibiotics. They told Jonnie to “stay out of trouble until Wednesday”. However, on the Friday night he was short of breath and needed an oxygen tank.
On Monday, his lung had filled again. His leg had also swollen and, Jess said, “everything was starting to shut down”. He died the following Friday.
Final moments of TV’s Jonnie Irwin shared by his wife
“You hear people say: ‘He passed away peacefully. It was lovely,’ but it wasn’t for Jonnie. It was a [bleep]ing awful process. I wish I hadn’t seen it but I had to be with him. I kept saying to the nurses who were there with us: ‘What do I do? What do I do?’ and they said: ‘You can’t do anything. Just stay with him.’
“It is just heartbreaking to see someone you love so much in that state, but he was surrounded by love and in our home, as he wanted, not in a hospice. But it is not peaceful. People are upset and I had our three little boys to manage. Even at the end, Jonnie didn’t want to go. He was fighting to the last,” she said.
Jess added: “I hated every second lying next to my dying husband. I cuddled him but he was in a lot of pain and kept saying: ‘Can I do anything?’ and he said: ‘No, I’m fine.’ How could he be fine? I still struggle with what he went through. There were times when Jonnie was fully aware of what was going on. He never complained. He’d just get upset and say: ‘I’m just so sorry I’m leaving you all.”
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Jonnie’s funeral
Jess also shared that she and Jonnie never discussed his funeral. She said she picked the songs that would be played – the ones she liked, as she’d “be there”. They included Paul McCartney’s Blackbird, Clair de Lune, which they’d had as their wedding tune, and Lord Of The Dance.
She chose a Maya Angelou poem about trees. And shared that most of his ashes will nurture the roots of an evergreen. It’ll be planted in land belonging to Jess’s family at Beadnell on the Northumberland coast.
She said she’ll go and plant it in the autumn. However, she won’t take their three young boys with her.
The rest of the star’s ashes have been scattered on a mountain in the Lake District by his friends.
She said she put them in a box alongside a note. It read: “To my favourite. I love you and miss you. Enjoy the view up there.”
Read more: Jonnie Irwin’s selfless final wish for wife Jess before his death
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