Bourne End mum paints portraits of baby after cancer diagnosis

Evre Başak Clarke, 38, has lived with her partner Philip, 39, in Bourne End for just over a year, but it has been 12 months of dizzying highs and paralysing lows, with the couple welcoming a beautiful baby son, Oscar just months before Evre received a “devastating” diagnosis of advanced bowel and liver cancer this September.

It has been a difficult few months, Philip says, at least eased on the financial front by a huge outpouring of support helping to raise over £50,000 via a GoFundMe page for the family’s medical and travel costs.

With expensive tests now mercifully paid for, it is still a daunting reality for the young family to face down a lengthy treatment journey, but one they are determined to take in the best possible faith.

Evre, an artist by profession, has even been making use of her hospital stays to create digital portraits of her son, who will celebrate his first birthday in a few weeks.

Philip said the portraits exemplify both parents’ mindset of keeping Oscar as “a focal point” and making a conscious effort to “take each day as it comes” and try to find the joy in little things, even in the wake of such life-altering circumstances.  

“Evre is thinking of her work at the moment as a kind of art therapy. She wants to show life through the lens of a cancer patient in a way that isn’t all doom and gloom. For her, painting Oscar brings together two of the loves of her life.

“She has an incredible strength. Things like this really jolt you back into what is actually important. We all have worries about material things, but the love of family, a partner, children, the flow she can lose herself in through her art – those things matter above all else.”

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Philip added that the supportive comments and financial contributions the couple has received from friends and strangers alike have been “really touching”, as has the hope that others will feel prompted to test themselves for liver cancer and catch it sooner after reading about Evre’s shock diagnosis.

“There’s a famous quote I’ve always hung onto from Viktor Frankl – ‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.’

“I remember reading that quote when my mum was going through cancer. It’s the idea that you can choose what your attitude is towards any given situation. You can choose to look for the joy.”