BOB GELDOF OPENED up about the deaths of three women in his life; his mother, his estranged wife Paula Yates and his daughter Peaches.
Speaking about the death of his own mother when he was just a child, Geldof described how his father bluntly told him, “Your mum died last night.”
The Boomtown rats singer told Sunday with Miriam on RTÉ Radio 1 that he used those exact words when telling his own children about the death of their mother, Paula Yates.
He described how it was his daughter Pixie’s 10th birthday and the children were opening presents in the sitting room when he received the news.
“I didn’t know what to do when I got the phone call at 10.30 on a Saturday morning.”
He described how he had to leave the room to gather himself before he could tell his children.
“I walked back into the sitting room, I sort of smiled and said, ‘What have you got now?’, ripping up the presents.
“I sat down and I waited until she finished with her presents and I said: ‘I’ve something to tell you, it’s serious’.
And I said exactly what my father had said to me. I said, ‘Your mum died last night’.
‘Time does not heal’
Geldof went on to describe how the death of his daughter Peaches had an enormous impact on him.
The 25-year-old was found unconscious at her home in southeast England last year. She is survived by her husband and two young sons. Her father said:
Part of me kind of half expected Peaches, to be honest with you, the way she was carrying on, there’s nothing you can do about it.
“But she is the one who is with me every second of the day and she’s the one who bounds into my consciousness at any moment, especially in any down moment…when I’m not doing something.
That’s incomprehensible to me still.
“This thing of being ‘forever 25′ in my head, that’s unbearable, simply because, that cliché … you’re not supposed to see your children die.”
The singer added, “There’s people listening who have had it much worse, but they understand what I’m on about.
I wait for it to stop, that’s the lesson. Time does not heal, it accommodates – but it ain’t accommodating this.
Geldof added that music and being on stage helps him:
I feel afterwards, light…my head is clear, there’s no ache, there is no gut sadness.
“You just make the most of life.”
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