LET'S RUN IT FOR MARY

Tomorrow will see an estimated 6,000 women run the 5km Race for Life on Southampton Common in aid of Cancer Research UK.

It's all part of a massive nationwide effort to raise £17.5m for the charity.

And this year sees the race celebrate its tenth anniversary.

Everybody runs for their own personal reasons, alone or as part of a team.

But all are united by the common cause of fighting a disease which ruins so many lives.

Watching the race will be a young widower whose wife died of cervical cancer in March.

Today he's urging you to run in her memory.

Mark Rowe and his children will be supporting a 75-strong team from Southampton's St Monica Infant School, deeply grieving because five parents from the same school year have died of the disease since September.

Bank clerk Mary Rowe, 32, is one of them.

Her son Lewis, 6, who is in Year 1, now walks to school with Mark

"I find it difficult just to think she's not here any more," said the yacht painter.

"I remember Mary saying to me 'if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone'. She was beautiful. Run it for us all. Run it for Mary. We will be there with our camcorder."

Mark, who lives in Kathleen Road, Sholing, with Lewis and the couple's daughter Emily 3, regularly talks to other widowers of Year 1 pupils.

The 35-year-old said one of the hardest things he had to do after Mary died was walk into the playground with his son for the first time.

"The last thing I would want to do is fall to pieces in front of the kids. If someone says 'I'm sorry to hear about Mary' you have to be strong enough not to get emotional."

Mary developed cervical cancer two years after Emily was born.

Two days after she married Mark on St Valentine's Day she went into hospital for the last time.

She eventually went into a coma and, on family advice, Mark took the children to say goodbye to their mother.

Mary died minutes later.

"I was talking to one of the other dads the other day," said Mark. "We were both saying the hardest times are when you go to bed and all you can hear is the clock ticking.

"But you have to be strong for the children."

Mark and Mary had been together for 14 years. Her best friend Nicky is married to Mark's brother Richard.

Mary lived in Southampton all her life, growing up in Banbury Avenue, Sholing.

On leaving school she joined NatWest bank as a cashier, working in the Portswood, Eastleigh, Chandler's Ford and Fair Oak branches.

In the meantime she and Mark settled down in Sholing and started a family.

Following the birth of Emily in August 1999 Mary had a cervical smear which did not require any follow-up treatment.

The loving mother wanted a third baby to complete her brood.

But, two years later, she became ill.

"She started having heavy bleeds which she knew wasn't right.

"We had the ambulance out a couple of times.

"In October she came back from work and ran to the bathroom bleeding."

And Mary never returned to work.

Mark says the consultant the couple saw that November initially didn't think her condition was that serious.

But several weeks later he recalled them to say a tumour had grown and put Mary down for chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a hysterectomy.

The months passed, peppered with treatments and blood transfusions until she was hospitalised for three weeks at the beginning of this year, only returning home to marry her partner of 14 years on February 14.

But the ceremony at St Mary's Church, Sholing, nearly didn't happen.

"The night before the wedding she was really, really ill. She didn't know her kidneys were failing. She was in a lot of pain and I didn't think we would get married.

"But on the day she was so happy and so beautiful," says Mark, gazing at her picture on the mantlepiece with tears in his eyes.

Two days later Mary was back in hospital.

She went into a coma on March 9 and lay for 27 hours surrounded by family and friends.

"I was wondering why she just kept hanging on.

"I phoned my mum up. She said 'Mary wants to see the kids'. That's what made me know it was the right thing to do.

"Once they were there I spoke to them in a private room. I explained mummy was going off to another place.

"They agreed to see her and we went into the room. It's a big thing for a child to do that - but they said goodbye.

"I took them out to a side room and the doctor said I shouldn't be long. I came straight back - and that's when she slipped away."

Back at home Mary Rowe had left behind individual letters and notes addressed to Mark, Lewis and Emily.

Her father Michael Kennard and his wife Pat are currently living there, as the family prop each other up while they grieve.

Mark frequently talks to the children about Mary, keeping the memory of their mother alive.

He also talks to other widower parents of Year 1 children at St Monica's school about what it's like to wake up each morning only to remember the gaping hole in their lives.

Today Lewis runs around the house firing a toy gun while Emily - the spitting image of her mother at the same age - sits on her father's lap sucking on an ice lolly.

"She loved the children so much," says Mark.

And suddenly there's silence, apart from the sound of a clock ticking.