Dying father hung onto life just long enough to hold his newborn — passed away three hours later

An episode of a British TV series brought people to tears when they saw one of the greatest examples of a father's love. The story, which was part of a special episode by the charity Stand Up To Cancer, showed the devastating effects of cancer on not just the person it affects but on their loved ones too. It featured Brett, a father of three with a brain tumor, who was in his last moments while meeting his third child for the first time. Throughout the episode, we see how he struggled with the disease before passing away earlier in 2019.

The couple, Brett and Nicola, were both newly qualified teachers, who were friends before realizing that they had more feelings for each other. They went from being friends to best friends to a married couple and soon after, parents to beautiful daughters.

"He really enjoyed being a dad...he was such a good dad," Nicola said. One of his daughters said that they used to spend time going to a farm, feeding animals, or jumping on a bouncy cushion. "It made me really happy," the girl said. "But, then he got poorly."

Nicola said that she noticed there were changes in him but he brushed it off. Eventually, they went to the doctor and found out that he had a brain tumor in 2015.

Nicola, a mother of three, said, "We sat down with his neurologist and they went through the extremes of what the surgery could lead to." They were told that the surgery could lead to death or removal of the tumor. "We almost started to panic and they took as much of the tumor away as they could. When the tumor grew back, when I was pregnant with Arya, it was more aggressive. It couldn't be operated on," she said, according to the Metro UK.

Three months after they found out that his tumor couldn't be operated on, she went into labor with their child. While she was in labor, Brett suffered a seizure and was rushed to a hospital's A&E in Milton Keynes.

After the birth of her child, all Nicola wanted to do was get to Brett before she lost him so that he could hold his darling daughter one last time. "It was like a race against time to make sure we were ok but could get going [to the hospital he was in]," Nicola said, according to the Daily Mail. She says that the hospital staff did whatever they could to make sure she reached in time.

Nicola's mother, who was with her in the hospital, drove the newborn and her to Brett. "I knew what was gonna happen and I wanted him to know that it was ok. I told him it's ok, don't hurt yourself anymore," the mother-of-three said.

The mother laid her newborn daughter, Arya, on Brett and described to him what she looked like. The father was able to meet his newborn for the first and last time. They spent some hours together and he was able to feel her close to him before he passed away. She was born at 5:07 am on February 11, 2019, while he passed away at 8:25 am.

His older daughters believe that their daddy, who used to be their "superhero handsome prince," is sending them feathers to let them know he's looking after them. And, he probably is looking out for his three princesses.

On Twitter, many people expressed how emotional the episode made them.

Watch the video here: