Laura 2.0, The Second Chance She Never Thought She’d Get

Silence became Laura’s routine. Isolation became her normal. And eventually, it broke her. 

When she attempted to take her own life, no one knew she had been struggling. “I kept everything to myself,” she says. “I didn’t even know how bad it had got.” 

Looking back now, she feels heartbreak for that version of herself. 

“That poor girl last year… she was lost. She didn’t know how to ask for help.” 

But she survived. And survival brought her somewhere she never expected: ellenor. 

Months later, her dad forwarded her a job advert for a role in the hospice’s supporter care team. Local. Something different. A charity she had always known was on her doorstep but had never really thought about deeply. 

“I just thought… I could do that,” she says. “I wanted a change. I didn’t want my old life anymore.” 

The interview left her shaking, terrified but full of hope. She walked out thinking. I’m going to get that job. 

“I remember thinking: I’m going to get that job. And when I did, I couldn’t believe it. Even now, sometimes I walk in and think, wow. I actually work here.” 

ellenor didn’t just give her a job. It gave her a safe place to rebuild her life that had almost slipped away. 

Laura now works in supporter care with Caitlin – often the first voices bereaved families hear when they call. She handles funeral donations, collections, bookings, mail and all the emotional moments no job description can prepare anyone for. 

“People ask what supporter care is and I never know quite how to describe it,” she says. “It’s walking alongside people. Being there. Whatever they’re going through, whatever they need – we don’t leave them to face it alone.” 

One day, a woman arrived utterly overwhelmed. Her husband had just been admitted from hospital onto the Inpatient Ward. She was shaking, panicking, terrified. Laura didn’t send her away with directions; she walked with her to the ward and stayed until she felt steady again. 

Days later, during the visit from the therapy ponies, the woman found her in the garden. 

“She told me thank you for how I was with her that day,” Laura says. “I’ll never forget that.” 

And then there was George – a patient with no family. 

Laura visited him every day on her lunch break. 

 She listened to his stories, took him into the garden, visited him until he died. 

“I thought, if I can give him twenty minutes, that’s everything to him, and it costs me nothing,” she says. “He didn’t have anyone. I just didn’t want him to feel alone.” 

Working in a hospice – a place many people think of only as “end of life,” has shown Laura something completely different. This is where people learn how to live again. 
Including the staff. 

“ellenor gave me joy again,” she says. “It gave me confidence. It made me feel safe. People here genuinely care. They check in. They listen. They notice.” She laughs at the assumptions she once had about what working in a hospice would be like. “Everyone here is incredible. The fundraising team, supporter care, the ward…  you can’t find kinder people. Being here has changed how I feel about myself.” 

She is in therapy weekly and takes medication that helps her feel steady – something she once felt ashamed of but now embraces as part of her wellbeing. 

“Not talking nearly cost me my life,” she says. “Talking saved it.”  

When she reflects on the past year, she often thinks about the moments she might never have lived to see: her nephew Hugo turning one. Getting this job. Finding purpose. Sitting with George. Helping strangers steady themselves in their worst moments. Laughing again and feeling hopeful again. 

“There are so many things I would’ve missed,” she says. “And so many more I haven’t even lived yet.” 

So who is Laura now? 

“I’m the girl who survived. And the woman learning to live.”  

There’s a strength in her voice as she tells her story. She calls herself Laura 2.0 – not a perfect new version but the beginning of a second chance she never thought she’d get. And ellenor is the place where that beginning took root. 

“It’s just a chapter,” she says. “Not the whole book.  

 
But it’s a chapter I’m grateful I stayed for.”