Kelsey Parker pays emotional tribute to late husband Tom Parker to mark World Cancer Day Motivational speaker Kelsey Parker has paid an emotional tribute to her late husband Tom Parker to mark World Cancer Day, and the star told how The Wanted singer's passing has "forever" changed the wa 5 February 2026 Kelsey Parker has paid an emotional tribute to her late husband Tom Parker, after his death changed the way she saw the world "forever". Kelsey Parker pays emotional tribute to late husband Tom Parker to mark World Cancer Day The 35-year-old motivational speaker took to Instagram to mark World Cancer Day by remembering her late husband, The Wanted singer Tom, who died in 2022, aged 33, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour more than a year earlier. Kelsey admitted Tom's passing has made her understand "how fragile" life is, and that a person can be "broken and still be brave". In an emotional Instagram video, she said: "Today is World Cancer Day. For some people, that's just a day on the calendar. For us, it's a line in our life that split everything into before and after. "Before cancer, I was a wife and mum, busy with normal life, normal worries. After cancer, I understood how fragile everything really is. "Losing Tom to a brain tumour, didn't just break my heart, it changed the way I saw the world forever. "Grief isn't just sadness, it's love that has nowhere to go. "It's learning how to carry someone with you, instead of beside you. "It's smiling for your kids when your chest feels so heavy. "It's surviving days you never imagined you'd ever have to face. Here's the part people don't talk about enough: You can be grieving and still be grateful. "You can be broken and still be brave. "You can lose someone and still choose to live." Following Tom's death, Kelsey - who has children Aurelia, six, and Bodhi, four, with her late husband - lives life differently. She refuses to "sweat the small stuff", and she "hugs longer" than she did prior to her significant other's passing. Kelsey added: "Cancer takes so much. "It steals time, future, plans. It also wakes you up, it makes you hold your loved ones tighter. "I live now in a way that I didn't before. I say the I love yous, I take the trips. I hug longer. "I don't sweat the small stuff like I used to before because I know, and in a way I wish I didn't have to, that tomorrow isn't promised. "Today, I'm thinking of every family in the fight. "If you're watching this and the world feels like it's falling apart, please hear me when I say, you don't move on from grief, you move forward with it. Somehow you grow around your pain. "I'm still standing. Not because it hasn't hurt, but because love is stronger than loss, and that is what cancer can't take. "Love stays always." Tagged in The Wanted Tom Parker