The hospice Chris, has never forgotten
‘It felt like a warm hug’: why he is giving back 17 years after losing his mum
When Chris Ward’s mum, Linda, was diagnosed with cancer in October 2009, he had no idea how little time they had left together.
She was 52. Linda died on Boxing Day.
Nearly 17 years later, Chris has never forgotten the hospice that cared for her and supported his family through the hardest days of their lives. Now, with the help of his employer, Ocean Outdoor, he is giving something back.
Ocean invites its people to nominate a charity to receive donated Out of Home advertising space, offering their chosen organisations the chance to reach a much wider audience. Chris, the company’s head of photography, knew immediately which charity he wanted to put forward.
His nomination meant ellenor could benefit from advertising space worth £20,000, helping it’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt art trail reach a wider audience. The campaign aimed to raise vital funds, challenge perceptions of hospice care and help more people understand the support available to patients and their families.
The opportunity was particularly important for Chris.
“When the company email came round, there was no second thought in my mind. It had to be ellenor, because of how great they were to me all those years ago,” he says.
Chris’s mum had been suffering from what the family thought were recurring infections. After Linda was admitted to hospital, doctors told the family she had cancer. Linda underwent surgery, but never really recovered.
Chris and his dad, Roy, decided they wanted Linda to be at home, but they had little understanding of what caring for her would involve, and soon found themselves struggling.
“We were trying to do the right thing by Mum. We wanted her to be at home and as comfortable as possible, but it was really tough,” Chris recalls.
“We were at a point where Dad and I just thought, ‘We can’t do this anymore. This isn’t how we wanted it to be.’”
ellenor’s nurses had already been supporting the family while Linda was in hospital. When she moved to the hospice in Northfleet for the final weeks of her life, Chris and his dad saw the difference that care makes.
“The most important thing for both of us was that Mum was pain-free and as comfortable as possible,” he says. “There could have been no better place. We will forever be truly grateful for everything they did.”
Leaving home had been difficult for his mum. Chris remembers her closing her eyes as she left the family house because she could not face seeing herself leave.
But he also remembers the reassurance of knowing Linda was being cared for, at a time when so much was beyond the family’s control.
“I never forget how protected I felt, because it was such an unknown time,” he says. “All of you guys here just knew exactly what to say. It was brilliant, and it just felt like a warm hug.”
ellenor’s support did not end when Chris’s mum died. The hospice also offered counselling to Chris and his dad as they came to terms with their loss. At the time, Chris felt he could talk things through with his wife and family, so he did not take up the offer. Looking back, though, he wonders whether counselling might have helped him, too.
Another person made a lasting difference. On the morning he learned his mum had cancer, Chris walked out of hospital and bumped into a close friend who had lost his own mum just months earlier.
That friend understood what Chris was facing. He kept in touch, checked how he was coping and offered support beyond the first few days, when other people sometimes came in and out of his life.
“He was pretty much the only one who would be keeping in contact with me, making sure everything was okay, if there was anything he could do,” Chris says. “He could completely understand what it was like for me. And it was amazing. I’ll never forget that.”
Years later, when the same friend suddenly lost his dad, Chris was there for him. He was asked to be a pallbearer at the funeral.
Their friendship had been shaped by a shared understanding of grief. The knowledge that losing a parent changes you, and that the need for support does not end after the funeral.
“You don’t know until you’ve been through it,” Chris says. “And then when you do know what it’s like, when you find out that someone close to you is going through it, you want to do everything you can to make sure they’re okay, to help them through that.”
It is one reason Chris believes people who have been bereaved can benefit from talking to others who have experienced a similar loss. Friends and family can offer love and support, but there is a particular comfort in speaking to someone who understands without needing an explanation.
Before his mum became ill, Chris had some awareness of ellenor because his mother-in-law had worked there as a massage therapist. Even so, he admits he had not fully understood what hospice care involved.
“There’s this stereotypical view that a hospice isn’t a nice place, that it’s all quite morbid because it’s about end-of-life care,” he says.
“But until you’re exposed to it, I don’t think you’ll ever really know what goes on in a hospice. It’s only when you’re in that situation that you realise these are incredible places.”
Chris also remembers the support he received from Ocean He joined the company in January 2009, just months before his mum became ill. He says his employer gave him the time and space to be with his family, without making him feel he had to justify every absence.
“They said, ‘Chris, do what you need to do. If you need to leave early, you just go. You don’t need to ask. We won’t ask questions.’”
After his mum died, the company gave him the time he needed before returning to work.
“They were phenomenal,” he says. “I can’t speak highly enough of the company for what they did for me.”
Nearly 17 years later, that kindness remains as vivid in his mind as the care his family received at ellenor. So when Ocean offered him the chance to nominate a charity to receive free advertising space, Chris knew how he wanted to use the opportunity.
The campaign included prominent advertising Out of Home sites in London’s Canary Wharf, helping to bring ellenor’s bear trail to people who might not otherwise have encountered the charity.
There was a personal touch, too. ellenor arranged for Chris’s mum’s name to be included on the Memory Bear, a gesture that moved him. Seeing Linda remembered in this way meant a lot, even after all these years.
“I teared up a little bit when I saw that,” he says. “It means a lot. Small things like that matter.”
For Chris, the opportunity was a way of giving something back to the people who had helped his family when they needed it most.
“Being able to do this makes me feel good,” he says. “I feel really good about being able to give something back because of what you guys did.”
He knows how frightening it can be when someone you love needs hospice care. If he could reassure another family facing that moment, he would tell them that support is there for the person who is ill and for those who love them.
“They’re going to get looked after so well,” he says. “It’s like a warm hug.”
Then, reflecting on what it means to turn a painful experience into something positive, he adds: “Out of the darkest time, if something positive can come out of it, then that’s amazing for me.”
