As may have been apparent from the title of this post, this is Alice’s husband rather than Alice with this post as sadly Alice passed away last month.
I know many people were following her updates on this blog, and I have received kind messages myself from people as far away as New Zealand, Mexico and America to give just a small indication of how Alice’s words travelled.
For my part I will try and do justice to the way Alice expressed herself so well in her posts.
I don’t want this post to be a list of facts, but I’m aware many of you may want to know how the last few days went for Alice, so I’ll start there.
Alice was admitted to the Royal Marsden in Chelsea for some tests and procedures to address some discomfort she was experiencing. Unfortunately, it became apparent that there was more going on and quickly things moved toward pain management. Myself, Alice’s mum (Melanie) and Alice’s brother (Luke) were with her each day as the conversations got more real around the stage we were entering.
There came the meeting we were all expecting, but hoping would never come, with the doctors to say that, unfortunately, no treatment could fight what was happening to Alice, and the priority now was to try and control the pain for Alice. As always in this journey, Alice was one step ahead of the doctors, and in a strange way, it appeared to be good for her to hear everyone was of the same opinion. Whilst at the same time, she was very aware of the horrors of what was to come.
Over the next few hours, and days, the hospital did their best to get the balance of pain medication right to make Alice as comfortable as possible and they succeeded in allowing us all some precious moments. But the path we were on was clear, as was the desire for Alice to get back closer to home. The doctors took me, Luke and Melanie outside of the room to tell us that the risk of moving Alice now would be high and that there was a chance she wouldn’t survive the journey. All three of us were clear on what Alice wanted though, she didn’t want another night in Chelsea, she wanted to be as close to home as we could get her to, to hopefully see her little girl.
We made that trip from the hospital in London to a hospice near our home, with Melanie in the ambulance and Luke and I following on in an Uber behind.
And of course, she made it.
She’s Alice.
I’ve never known anyone tougher.
In fact when she exited the ambulance and felt the sunshine and fresh air hit her face Alice smiled, sunshine always did make things better for Alice.
Whilst Melanie and Luke helped Alice settle into her room in the hospice, I went to the school to pick up my daughter to bring her to see her mummy.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a few doubts around whether I was doing the right thing but Alice and I had talked a lot about what these last few days would be like and how we should manage the narrative for Charlotte and, like every big decision, I knew that not only did I think this was the right thing to do but that Alice would 100% think the same.
Charlotte as always, was a star. She walked in carrying the flowers she had brought for mummy and the drawings she had done at school that day for her and proceeded to climb onto mummy’s bed to give her a massive cuddle. Alice, having not been able to say much for a while now, immediately shouted out “my baby girl!” and any small doubts I was doing the correct thing immediately left me.
Over the hours to come there were moments for each of us (now joined by Penny and Helen) to spend our own time with Alice and try and process what was happening.
When the end came it was as sad as you can imagine. But it was also peaceful for Alice and having talked this through so much with Alice right from the initial diagnosis I personally took a lot of comfort that she would suffer no more.
The end is such a final word to type, and yet whilst it was the end it was also the start. The start of an outpouring of grief from so many people.
What follows are the words I spoke at her funeral.
On one of the many great trips I had with Alice we went to see a show where someone referred to grief as “love persevering” and since her passing it’s been very clear to me how much love for Alice there is to persevere from so many people.
When I think about my own love for Alice, I think of all the fun things we did and the great times we had together. The small things are often the first that come to mind, demonstrating how all it took to bring joy was to be with Alice.
I remember climbing in Yosemite and Alice having to “have a word with herself” after every switchback. She got to the top, of course she did. And the following day after driving across Nevada she won big on the blackjack tables in Las Vegas and bought herself some Louboutin’s – sleeping under the stars and hiking, to putting on your glad rags and new expensive shoes, all within 24 hours.
Or I think of during Covid when Alice volunteered to get shopping for anyone who couldn’t leave their house, doing multiple shopping trips whilst still holding down a full time job and memorably having to buy “a nice bottle of champagne” for a woman whose kids were coming round at the weekend and, it turned out, lived closer to her than we did.
Or finally just simply dancing together in a dive bar in Key West to the song that would in time become the first dance at our wedding.
Things were always better with Alice.
Even in the last year with everything going on things were still better with Alice.
Alice hated the phrase fighting cancer, as it’s a fight no one can win. But the truth is she did fight, she fought to make sure she was able to do so much with so many in her remaining time.
She went through over 40 rounds of chemotherapy, the same drugs they used to make mustard bombs for the world war were used to try and poison the cancer in her body. She was given drugs to take home, which I was told I would need to wear gloves to handle and to wash my hands thoroughly after. But Alice was told to swallow and take straight into her body.
And despite all this she kept pushing on so we could do nice things and create nice memories as a family. We went to Lapland with the cousins and Abu Dhabi with friends and family, and aside from the big trips she got out of bed pretty much every day to go and play with her little buddy Charlotte.
And now I keep finding myself taking pictures of Charlotte doing things to share with Alice.
And I think I will always do that.
When I hear that song I want to share, when someone tells me about a great TV series to watch, when something funny happens to me, when something big happens in the world or something tiny happens in my life, I will think of her.
As the saying goes “grief is love persevering”
and me and Alice are going to live forever.
