Thanksgiving is a time to focus on family and a time to reflect on what we are truly grateful for. Here Prue Leith shares exclusively with HELLO! readers an open love letter written to her daughter, detailing why she will be eternally grateful for her adoption...
Read more from Prue in HELLO!'s Thanksgiving digital issue
47 years ago, my husband Rayne and I adopted Li-Da, (a Cambodian baby whose parents were victims of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge genocide) and she has been a constant joy and inspiration ever since. A spunky little girl who laughed a lot and was up for anything, she grew into a young woman with a host of friends, no enemies and huge resilience.
Of course, I am grateful for the best daughter any mum could wish for, but I am also inspired by her. When, ten years ago, she got breast cancer, she and her husband Matt had just decided to try for a baby. That dream went out of the window, but Li-Da, who had always wanted to follow in my footsteps and “have one and adopt one” just decided to adopt two. Now she and Matt have two little boys, four years old and one year old, both mixed race – one English/ Eritrean, the other English/Congolese.
I’m grateful for them too. They are a delight. Many mums feel the loss of a child when they marry. But Li-Da and I have, if anything, become closer over the years. We both work in the media business, me as a telly presenter and writer, Li-Da as a producer and director.
We made a film together looking for her Cambodian roots, and now are joint partners in Relish, a start-up TV production company. So I am thankful that I have this dual relationship with her, business and family. I have a lot to be thankful for, much much more than I deserve.
I have a lovely second husband after the death of beloved Rayne, a happy family of eleven grandchildren between us, everyone doing well. I have a successful career, energy and good health.
But I’m particularly grateful for Li-Da’s recovery from breast cancer. That she is still with us, clear of cancer, happy, and totally unbowed, is something I am eternally grateful for.
Love, Prue Leith X
Photographer: Margot Judge, Makeup Artist: The Artist Red, Hair: David Roberts, Styling: Jane Galpin and Ian Jeffries, with thanks to Target and Roku Channel
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