R.I.P

I've just been reading online about Jade Goody.

I can't believe she's dead.

I didn't follow her cancer battle, but I did hear about it and felt very emotional. I just felt so sorry for her.

I remember when she first entered the Big Brother house. Like everyone else, I was thinking 'Oh My God, is this girl for real?!' At first I disliked her because she 'tainted' my name. Everytime I met someone new and told them my name, they would say 'As in Jade Goody?'.

But I started to warm to her. I loved the fact that she never pretended to be intelligent. But in actual fact she was - she just didn't have the general knowledge! The stuff that came out of that girl's mouth had me cracking up! Right down from thinking that East Anglia was abroad to thinking a strawberry was a vegetable.

She didn't win the show - but she should've done. That didn't even matter. Getting through all the jokes and the ridicule, she had the last laugh and became reality TV's most successful star. She set up her own businesses, she brought out a perfume (which actually smells pretty good), wrote a book, had her own TV show and appeared in a load others. She became such an inspiration and more and more people started to admire her. Including me. The way that she has come out of all this shit that she got herself into is incredible.

And yesterday she died. At the age of 27. Only one year older than me. On Mother's Day. Her poor kids.

It's really got to me actually. She died battling cervical cancer. I remember when I was 18 I found a lump in my chest. It turned out to be nothing but it was a very scary time. And I'm reminded of the way I felt when I found it everytime I look in the mirror and see the scar.

It's one of those things that you think will never happen to you. You think that cancer happens in people who have unhealthy lifestyles - who smoke, drink, do drugs - whatever. But the scary reality of it all is that it can strike ANYONE at ANY age.

Like I said, I haven't followed the battle. But it has been all over the press since she was diagnosed and I have spent the evening catching up with newspaper archives and watching TV appearances on YouTube. It's not like I was her biggest fan or anything but the clips and the tributes have deeply saddened me.

Maybe because my state of mind isn't in the right place today either.

But I believe that she has been a great inspiration in her short life. People make mistakes - of course they do. She was cussed out hard for allowing the press so much coverage of her final days but she was making money for her childrem. People do great things and she has really managed to turn her life around and achieve amazing things post BB.

It's got to me. Or for some reason that I haven't worked out yet, I needed an excuse to cry.

R.I.P Jade Goody.

xx