Every evening, widower Greg Murphy finds solace for his grief by looking up to the night sky. There, he finds a star from which he believes his late wife, Natalie, is looking down upon him and their two-year-old son, Jackson.

‘I tell Nat every night that I love her more than the moon and the stars,’ says Greg of his soul mate, his partner of 13 years.

Natalie, a loving suburban mum, captured a worldwide following when she began blogging and posting videos online about life with the breast cancer she was determined to fight.

On December 19, less than three months before their 10th wedding anniversary, Natalie lost her two-year battle against the disease. She was 35.

Greg is now determined to make sure Natalie’s legacy lives on. ‘I doubt I’ll ever stop missing her but I’ve been prepared for a while. When you discover your partner has cancer you start grieving immediately. I’ve been dealing with it for two years,’ Greg, 34, says.

‘But Natalie left behind a strong message – make the most of life while you have it.’ Running towards his dad for a cuddle is Natalie and Greg’s energetic blue-eyed preschooler.

He’s holding a phone ‘talking’ to his mother. Before he hands it to Greg, he says, ‘Mummy’s in heaven now with the angels’.

Greg smiles at his young son, who reminds him so much of his late wife, and talks about adjusting to life as a single parent.

‘I’m focusing on giving Jackson as much stability as I can,’ says Greg, whose eyes well with tears when he looks at his son.

Despite overwhelming support from family, Greg admits the reality of being a single parent has hit him hard. ‘The toughest part is putting him in full-time day care. It’s never what I wanted, and I hate it. But the reality is I’m a single parent and for now it’s what we have to do.

‘Jackson clings to me asking me not to go because he’s worried I won’t come back. He needs reassurance, but he’s adjusting.’

Jackson is what keeps Greg focused from being consumed with grief. Greg will balance running his own company, Unleashed Software, and writing a blog about his own experiences on coping with a loved one having terminal cancer to help others going through a similar situation.

‘When someone is diagnosed with cancer you want to know what to expect and that it’s OK to deal with the situation in your own way,’ he explains.

In 2009, Natalie found a small lump in her breast the day before Jackson was born. But by the time she was operated on, it was too late, as the disease had spread to her liver.

‘It’s hard loving someone when you know they are going to leave you, because you start prematurely thinking about dealing with life after they are gone,’ Greg says.

‘But I tried not to do that, and I feel like I made Natalie’s life as good as I possibly could.’ Greg candidly reveals their marriage, like most couples, had its rocky patches, but Natalie had shown him how to stay positive in times of darkness.

‘We clashed at times, but Nat taught me how to stick in there. It’s easy to walk away from a marriage, but she fought for us,’ Greg says.

‘Nat also suffered a miscarriage before Jackson, which was difficult for us. But all those hard times really galvanised our relationship.’

After sorting though her belongings weeks after Natalie passed away, Greg made a startling discovery. Natalie had made several secret video recordings for Greg and Jackson on her computer.

One was recorded before Natalie started her chemotherapy treatment. ‘Nat keeps on surprising me! It was really good to see her in this video, she had a glow in her eyes which I hadn’t seen for the past two years,’ he says.

Since Natalie’s diagnosis, Greg has a new appreciation for life and knows many have found the same, following the enormous amount of mail and letters he receives daily from people all over the world.

‘She went public for two reasons – to help fund her medical bills and remind people of how important life is,’ Greg says.

He then reads their family mantra printed on the wall of their North Shore home: ‘Life is not measured by the amount of breaths you take, but the number of times your breath is taken away’.

One of these moments was when Greg first saw Natalie. ‘We were 16. She was this gorgeous girl and I was the guy with hair down to my butt trying to impress her,’ Greg says.

‘Three years later we started dating and then another three years later, after botching my first proposal, I asked her, while on a hammock in Fiji, to be my wife. It was one of the best moments of my life.’

Before working as a beauty therapist, Natalie was a wedding assistant, helping brides on their big day. He says their own wedding day in Snapper Bay, on Hauraki Gulf’s Motuihe Island, was picture perfect.

Natalie’s ashes are now there in a family plot. It’s four weeks since Greg repeated his wedding vows at his wife’s funeral held at Auckland’s C3 Church. In a video tribute played to the congregation, Natalie’s motivations for sharing were explained.

‘I do believe everything happens for a reason. It was really on my heart to share my story. I desperately want to help others. I just want to help people live their lives better and not take their lives for granted and show women how strong they can be.’

Greg knows Natalie would want him to move on one day, but glancing at Jackson and the pictures of his wife that cover the walls of their family home, this will never happen.

‘It would be easy for me to take down all Nat’s pictures and move on, but I won’t do that,’ Greg says. ‘Natalie will always be Jackson’s mum. And there will always be a photo of her beside Jackson’s bed to remind him of the amazing,
beautiful person she was.’