IT was a telephone call I knew had to come but, still, it was a shock when Fidelma Cook's son Pierce rang last Saturday afternoon. His mother had admitted herself to hospital last Friday and she had, very peacefully, passed away on Saturday morning.

The poor man was in the earliest stage of grieving when arrangements and details fill the heads of those who have just lost the people closest to them.

I knew what he was going through, having recently lost my father, but I couldn't find the words to adequately convey how much she meant to everyone at The Herald. Not for the first time, I wished I had Fidelma's way with words.

After he rang off, I phoned our editor-in-chief Donald Martin to discuss how we would break the news to the readers. We were determined to pay tribute to Fidelma in the only way we, or she, knew.

READ MORE: Fidelma Cook, much-loved Herald columnist, has died

I phoned Pierce back, got the bald details of birth dates and hospital names, the bare facts of a life well lived, and wrote a piece for online and our Sunday paper.

Within minutes of it going live, the phone calls, emails, texts and messages started. I knew people would be upset. She was such a big part of our weekend magazine but even I was blown away by the depth of feeling.

READ MORE: My mum and me – nothing will ever be the same again, by her son Pierce

In today's magazine, Mark Smith examines what made Fidelma – one of the few columnists who didn't need a second name – such a special writer. And her son Pierce has, with typical Cook panache and honesty, penned a piece about what his mother meant to him. It's an exceptional article and please, if you can, read it. His mother would have been so proud of his column, as I know she always was of him.

So, how do we fill the gap that she has left in our pages? The answer is that, of course, it's impossible.

Fidelma was one of a kind – not many columnists can open themselves up so completely to their readers. When she revealed how ill she was a year or so ago, readers got in touch to ask if they could help. If The Herald could perhaps set up a Go Fund Me fundraising page to bring her home. She was touched by those kind thoughts but brushed the idea away. She had always been an independent woman, who stood on her own two feet, and nothing, not even cancer, would change that.

READ MORE: Fidelma's life and genius 

Then it dawned on us how best to mark her passing and, as so often, the idea came from a reader who asked if we could re-run our favourites. It was a fitting idea because when Fidelma began her column in 2006 it was a different world. Back then, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister and Jack McConnell was our First Minister and our website was not the comprehensive service it has become. Her columns didn't appear online then and are now very difficult to find. So, this summer, we will pay tribute to Fidelma by running a selection in The Herald Magazine each Saturday.

Fidelma may be gone but her words will live on.