Jane McGrath - courage and grace personified

THE cruel killer that is breast cancer claimed Jane McGrath after haunting her for more than a decade, but she will forever be remembered as a fighter.

THE cruel killer that is breast cancer claimed Jane McGrath after haunting her for more than a decade, but she will forever be remembered as a fighter.

The English-born wife of Australian cricket legend Glenn McGrath was the personification of courage and grace.

The devoted mother of two died with her loved ones at her bedside at home in Sydney yesterday. She was 42.

It brought a peaceful end to an 11-year battle with a disease that she had tackled again and again.

Yet from that heart-wrenching adversity came much good, namely in the formation of the McGrath Foundation.

It was created when Jane was still in her initial recovery from surgery, and she realised that the health system had a shortage of breast cancer nurses.

Since then, the foundation has raised more than $3 million. Perhaps just as importantly, she has raised public awareness and been an unofficial flag-bearer for women fighting the disease.

Her candid interview with Andrew Denton on ABC'S Enough Rope in 2004 revealed her charm and humility.

While her husband was the public figure, Jane emerged as engaging, funny and wonderfully honest.

She recalled the problems of wearing a prosthetic breast.

"It was tricky, at times. It'd fall out. Washing the car, it fell into a bucket one day. And that was, you know, not the best thing to happen."

The couple met in a nightclub in Hong Kong in 1995. Jane remembers being struck by the bowler's height.

Love blossomed, and within months she had packed in her job in England as a Virgin Atlantic flight attendant to move to Sydney.

A year on, in 1997 and aged just 31, Jane noticed an irregularity in her left breast, and her worst fears were confirmed.

A series of invasive treatments followed. Radiotherapy. Chemotherapy. And finally, a mastectomy.

Told the procedures would probably make her infertile, the couple were delighted when Jane discovered she was pregnant - probably about the same time they were married, in Sydney in July 1999.

James was born the following January. And 20 months later, daughter Holly arrived.

The couple also released the book A Love For Life, in which they wrote alternate chapters. It was as much a love story as it was a tale of defeating disease.

On Australia Day in 2002, Jane became an Australian citizen. It officially completed her adopted Aussie status.

After all, she had become a serious supporter of the national cricket team.

She recalled how she had been told to calm down in the members' enclosure at Lord's.

"I'd jump up, and you know, and they'd turn around and go, 'Shhhhh, can't do that here'," she told Denton.

"And I said, 'My boyfriend just got eight for 38. I'll do what I like'."

But the dark clouds returned in August 2003 when a secondary cancer was detected in her hip.

Glenn returned from the West Indies tour and spent eight months at home caring for his wife and looking after the kids.

Even with the spectre of cancer looming again, the couple did not discuss the prospect of her dying. It was simply not a consideration.

"There's nothing, nothing I won't do, try or be to beat it. Nothing at all. So death isn't an option for me, no," she told Denton.

A course of radiotherapy eliminated the disease again, and she was able to devote more time to the foundation.

One of her close friends through all the pain was Tracy Bevan, wife of Test all-rounder Michael Bevan.

Ms Bevan became the manager and board member of the McGrath Foundation.

The couple were also close to Steve and Lynette Waugh, who lived nearby.

The McGrath family was rocked yet again when Jane was diagnosed with a brain tumour in February 2006.

Jane partly owed her life to Waugh, who recommended celebrated Sydney neurosurgeon Charles Teo, even though she had been told the tumour was inoperable.

The tumour was removed.

McGrath once joked that he would be remembered as Jane McGrath's husband.

When the couple were jointly named Members of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day honours list this year, McGrath said the foundation's lifesaving advances meant more than success on the cricket field.

Just last September, the McGraths and their children were pictured as a happy family, celebrating Jane's 10 years of survival since her first diagnosis.

But this year Jane needed surgery again, and ensuing complications eventually claimed her life.

Barely two months ago, the couple had announced plans to expand the foundation into India.

That she was still considering the work of the foundation while undergoing treatment was a testament to her resolve.