Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, aka the Supervet, has made the heart-breaking announcement that his mother has died at the age of 92.
The hugely popular vet, who became a household name through his Channel 4 programme, broke the news to followers on social media on Sunday.
Sharing a sweet photograph of him and his mother smiling and sharing a cup of tea together, Noel wrote that his ‘dear mammy Rita’ died last week, on February 2.
‘I loved my mammy beyond words,’ the Irishman wrote.
‘She believed in me when nobody else did and encouraged me late at night with my studies when I felt all alone.’
Noel said that since her death he had felt ‘all alone’ until he took comfort in remembering they had ‘the most wonderful past Christmas day together’.
‘She couldn’t look upwards anymore, so I lay at her feet by her chair where she could see me. She knew she was passing soon. She held my hand and whispered that she would always be inside me. I would never be alone.’
Noel and Rita had discussed her death at the time, with Noel asking her if she had ‘her bags packed and ready to go’, to which she replied: ‘Sure Noel, where I’m going nobody needs any baggage at all… In fact, you’re better off without it.’
He paid tribute to his mother’s ‘serenity and faith’, saying she wouldn’t ‘want a fuss’ even in her death; she ‘elevated everyone with her kindness, compassion, empathy and bright wit’.
Noel’s father, Seán, died in 2006 from a brain haemorrhage, leaving the family heart-broken, and Rita was buried beside him after her funeral on Friday.
Rita ‘had absolute faith that she would be reunited with Daddy in heaven and she has been looking forward to ‘perpetual peace’ in her resting place beside him,’ Noel revealed.
‘As she said to me when she was tucking me in at night as a child – ‘Nite nite now… Tomorrow will be a lovely day (sic).’
Finishing the emotional tribute, Noel thanked Rita for ‘all the love you gave to our world’, adding ‘thank you for everything Mammy’.
‘I will love you forever. Nite nite now…Tomorrow will be a lovely day. Because of you (sic).’
In the tribute, Noel thanked everyone for their kind wishes and support for him and his siblings in recent days.
Rita died at home in Mountmellick, County Laois, the town Noel grew up in before establishing his practice in Surrey.
Along with Noel, Rita and Sean had five other children: John, Mary, Frances, Grace and Josephine, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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