This Christmas, there will be someone missing.

This Christmas will be unlike any that Jack and his daughters have known before. The family will be together. There will be all the familiar traditions. But for the first time in 60 years, Anne won’t be there. 

Jack met Anne when he was 19. It was at a Saturday night dance at University College London. Jack jokes that he and a friend tossed a coin to decide who would ask which girl to dance — and Jack lost. It turned out to be the luckiest loss of his life!

Anne became a teacher. She was kind, creative and talented. She quilted, crafted and a much-loved member of the WI. Together, they raised a family and saw the world. India, Nepal, Japan, Alaska, Cuba. There were cruises and adventures, and lots of special time in Keswick, where they fell in love with the Lake District.  

Then, just before last Christmas, their world changed.  

Anne had been experiencing pain beneath her ribs. Eventually, a CT scan revealed the devastating news. She had cancer. It was inoperable and incurable. Treatment began, but the cancer continued to progress. It was during these frightening months that Oakhaven came into Jack and Anne’s lives.  

Oakhaven’s palliative care team helped manage Anne’s pain, visited them at home and took care of practical things. But perhaps most importantly, Jack knew they weren’t alone. 

“All the way through it, we always knew there was somebody at the end of a phone, 24/7, who would listen and take action if needed.”  

As Anne became more poorly, the Oakhaven team gently helped the family think about what would happen when she reached the end of her life, and how they might benefit from Oakhaven’s bereavement support.  

As time went on, Jack worried about keeping her safe and managing her medication at home. When Oakhaven’s nurses visited them at home, they recognised that the time had come for Anne to be admitted to the Oakhaven Inpatient Unit. It would be her final journey. 

The Oakhaven team concentrated on keeping Anne comfortable and free from pain, while giving Jack and their daughters precious space to be together. In those final days, Jack didn’t have to be Anne’s nurse. He could simply be her husband. Anne died peacefully at Oakhaven in July this year.  

Jack was able to sit beside the woman with whom he had shared virtually his entire adult life. 

Now Christmas is approaching. And Jack is discovering that grief often lives in the smallest things and it’s the ordinary things that hurt. Anne was the person who made birthdays and Christmas happen. The presents “just appeared”, Jack says, because Anne organised them.  

Jack, his daughters and granddaughter will return to Keswick this Christmas. They will be together, but Anne’s place in the family gathering will be painfully empty.  

And somewhere in our community this Christmas, another family will need somebody. Somebody to listen. Somebody to care. Somebody to answer the phone when they’re frightened. Somebody to make sure the person they love is comfortable. Somebody who allows a husband to stop being a carer and simply hold his wife’s hand.  

Your Christmas donation can help Oakhaven be that somebody.  

Because at the hardest moments of our lives, none of us should have to face them alone.  

Please donate to Oakhaven this Christmas and help us be there for somebody who really needs us.