In the 2015 film Miss You Already, terminally ill Milly spends her dying days in a peaceful countryside mansion, with lovely big glass doors that open out onto lush green gardens.

The room is homely, lived-in and inviting. It's a home away from home, and when Milly draws her final breath she does so in a place that is beautiful.

Natasha Welsh, 39, remembers watching the Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette film not long before her husband Derek got sick with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer that took his life in 2019 when he was just 35.

But when they were told they were coming to the end-of-life stage just 23 months into their cancer journey, the options for the young family were limited.

"You either die at home, or you move to a palliative facility," Natasha toldMamamia."We don’t have anything like that [film] here at all. And I didn’t think I could live in the house where he died. I didn’t think it was for me."

In a palliative care facility, the couple's young son Cristian, who was four at the time, wasn't allowed to stay the night by his father's bedside like Natasha was. They looked at all the options, including renting another apartment to use solely for Derek's final days.

"But we realised it would be difficult to rent a place and not be open about the fact we were taking someone there to die. In the end, we realised we just had to pick a facility. There was one at Concord Hospital in Sydney that was newer and had these bifold doors that allowed the patient to be rolled outside for fresh air. It just made that little point of difference," said Natasha.

While Natasha was offered things like massages and music therapy as she slept by her husband's bedside for his last 11 days, there was nothing on offer for their son.

"There were a lot of old people [in there], and that was always the issue. When Cristian came, I found myself just going 'shhhh, quiet'. It was really hard. There are no activities for the kids to play and be loud, and I was coordinating my parents to come and go with him, which was all fine and well, but when you want to hug your child because you’re about to lose your husband and their father... it just seemed incomplete because our son wasn’t there with us," Natasha toldMamamia.

As Natasha acknowledges, the reason no one has thought to create a space for terminally-ill adults with young children is because "adults with young children shouldn't be dying".

It was the last thing Derek and Natasha were worrying about, after all. They were excited about the prospect of trying for another baby and growing their family when they were delivered the traumatic news.

Natasha had arrived home from a work trip in Japan on Derek's 34th birthday, and a day later they had the family over to celebrate.

"We had left the house in the morning because he was so unwell with a headache and vomiting and couldn’t open his eyes, as people were arriving at our house for a party. We were giving them updates saying things like, ‘just start without us, we'll be home soon.' But when we found out he had lesions in his brain, people started leaving. Time just stood still. It unravelled from there."