28 November 2024
Our support doesn’t stop after your loved one has died. In the last year we provided 51 bereavement support group sessions and 866 bereavement counselling sessions for family members whose loved ones died in our care. Brent McMurchy was one of those family members. As he and his eight-year-old son Campbell face their first Christmas without their much-loved wife and mother, Cat, Brent shares how Harbour Hospice has helped them deal with the ‘difficult firsts’.
Cat McMurchy was a fun-loving woman. So when she knew Christmas 2023 would be her last she organised a huge scavenger hunt. She, her husband Brent and their son Campbell got together with six other families and battled it out to see who would be the first to gather a full set of photos of themselves in front a decorated house, with a reindeer, dressed as a Christmas tree, and so on.
“That was just what Cat was like,” Brent says. “And it was such a fun day. She had this really creative mind and she did interesting things and drew people together.”
This Christmas will be different, with just Brent, Campbell and close family. Cat died in Harbour Hospice care on 4 April, age 45, two years after being diagnosed with cancer.
Cat was able to receive end-of-life care in Harbour Hospice’s Inpatient Unit. Brent explains, “All Cat had wanted – and I heard her ask God for this many, many times - was to let her be herself as much as she could, for as long as she could, then to have a precipitous drop right at the end. I’m telling you, that’s exactly what happened. Cat continued living her life, she was really sporty, she loved to travel, she loved cooking, and she was creative. She was still riding bikes with Campbell and I even when she was sick. She was someone who could always smell the flowers.”
When Cat first went into hospice care she had worried she would be sent home, Brent says - “because she looked perfectly fine” and because she’d been dismissed by other health professionals earlier in her journey when she’d tried to get to the bottom of why she felt so unwell.
“But the doctors at hospice were so reassuring and brought such comfort,” Brent says. “We were told, ‘We can see what’s happening. Trust me, you’re not going anywhere.’ That was the first example of the absolute compassion and understanding that people at hospice have.”
Brent and Campbell visited Cat every day and grew to see hospice as a welcoming and safe space. “I used to stand in the hallway and think, ‘A building like this, where so many lives end, could be the most macabre-feeling place ever. Heavy, dark, sad. But it isn’t. It feels full of love and compassion, and the people in it, they exude that too.”
Brent says that love and compassion continued after Cat’s death. He received six bereavement counselling sessions which helped him “get to a place where I felt I could be a big boy and use the tools I’d been given, for myself and to support Campbell in his grief.” He says it has helped them deal with all the difficult firsts - Campbell’s first birthday without his mum, Cat’s birthday. Their first Christmas, which is only a few weeks away.
Brent was then invited to join a hospice bereavement support group, and says, “It was really good to just be around people that understood. We all said the same thing in our own ways when we shared our stories - that others can be sympathetic, but only we know what it’s like to be in our shoes.” The group bonded and have swapped contact details so they can stay in touch.
There is one last thing that Brent wants others to know about Harbour Hospice, and that’s the
“magnificent book” that sits in its remembrance room, containing the names of those who’ve died in hospice care.
“It’s yet another example of the respect that Harbour Hospice has for the people it cares for. They don’t have to do that. But they do, and they allow people like me to come in whenever we like to open the pages and see our person’s name. Cat is not forgotten."
