Daughter to EAT mum on Christmas Day: 'I just can’t stop myself'

Grieving Debra Parsons has been having a spoonful of her mum for weeks, admitting: “I just can’t stop myself”.

The 41-year-old’s craving is now so big she will eat the “chalky, salty” ashes on December 25 just to “feel closer to her”.

She will have a chair and placemat laid for mum Doreen Brown with a picture of her on the table, while she chomps on her ashes.

Debra, from Folkestone in Kent, said: “It is the only thing that will get me through my first Christmas without mum.

“People might think I’m mad or that it’s not a very respectful thing to do but I just can’t stop myself.”

She added that she feels her mum can “live on by being inside of me” because “she can breathe through my body”.

Doreen died suddenly from an airway obstruction after suffering a chest infection in May.

When she received her mum’s ashes, she kept them in a plastic sandwich bag before putting them into a little box on display.

But as she struggled to feel close to her mum, she gave in one day and started eating her.

She told the Sunday People: “I don’t know what made me do it the first time – it was just an urge. I can’t describe it.

“I opened the box and licked my fingers and just dipped them into the powder.

“Before I knew what I was doing they were in my mouth and the chalky, salty taste was comforting. I felt confused by what I had done to begin with but the feeling of comfort and closeness it brought was the first bit of solace I’d had since her death.”

She has since been having a “little taste most days”, “sometimes on my finger or on a spoon”.

Debra’s mum’s death tragically came after she lost a son at Christmas 1996 when he was born prematurely.

Because of this, she says “as it gets close this year I feel the urge even more”.