Donate now and we'll light a lantern for you in the Hospice Garden this Christmas. Help us be there for families facing their last Christmas together.

We need local businesses and communities to come together to Light up Christmas at our Hospice in North London. We have an ambitious target to raise enough funds to run the whole Hospice over Christmas 2020, so we can be there for families living with terminal illness across six North London boroughs.

By donating unused Christmas party funds, passing an e-card around or hosting a Christmas fundraising event - you can make a huge difference to families living in your community.

Families like Lucy’s.

Lucy Booth was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32. She died at Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead August 9th 2016, with her sister and parents by her side. She was 37 years old.

Lucy’s mum Jackie and her sister Analie shared Lucy’s story with us:

Analie:  “Lucy was really funny, she was hilarious, but she was quite shy when she was little.

She went away [to Italy] the summer after her A-levels, not speaking any Italian. When she came back, she had blossomed.  I was 2 years older than her and she annoyed me as little sisters do; I’m sure I annoyed her, but we were always close.

She moved to London in 2006 and I moved to London in 2009. We didn’t live that far apart, I moved into a place just up the road from her.

She found the lump at the end of the September in 2011 and she didn’t tell me that she had been to the doctors about it. I had been away for a week and I came back, and we were going to go out for my birthday in October. I was sat on the bed and she said: ‘Now, I don’t want you to panic but I found a lump.’ She was so matter-of-fact about it and calm. She was going to go for a mammogram and an ultrasound. I asked her if she wanted me to go with her, but she said ‘nope, I’m fine, I don’t want a whole load of drama when it’s probably going to be fine.’

They ended up doing a biopsy though and the doctor said to her ‘you will bring someone with you next time’ and that upset her, as I think she knew then that something wasn’t right.  She rang me, and I legged it home.

She didn't want to tell Mum and Dad over the phone, so we invented a party back home that we were going to, to explain why we were going to visit. It was the longest car journey and I don’t know why we felt the need to go to such elaborate lengths, but she wanted to protect them I suppose, and then it was telling them, and that was hard. She was diagnosed on the Monday and after that things just moved so quickly.”

Jackie:   "Lucy was such a positive person. When she came to tell us about her diagnosis the first time, it was such a shock - I thought she was going to tell us she was pregnant, and then to hear her say that she had a lump in her breast was shocking and we all cried.

We went with her to The Whittington on the Monday and the professionals were so good at delivering that kind of news.

Lucy was so positive right from the start and we took her lead. She asked us all to sit with her the first time she had chemotherapy. I went in first and she had the ice cap on and a big smile on her face - it was a genuine smile as though she was saying ‘this isn’t a big deal, it’s all fine.’ Alan just burst into tears, but Lucy was most upset because her dad was upset.

That’s when I realised I would be no good to her if I cried and got upset in front of her, that’s not what she needed from me. I could do my crying when I wasn’t with her, I would do my weeping on my own.”

Analie:  “I try to see the positive in things, even when it’s hard to. We were always a close family, but her illness brought us even closer together. Lucy and I shared some special and scary times. When she was re-diagnosed, that was horrendous -to see her go from being fine to hooked up on drips in hospital, it was really hard. 

We also had some wonderful special times. She wanted to make memories and maybe it’s only with hindsight, I can look at things and think she did that on purpose.

She went to Pompeii with our Mum and she went on day trips with Dad, and it feels like she wanted to make those memories for her but also for us. We used to just potter around a lot of the time, but also the birthday before she died, we went to the theatre.”

Jackie:  “On July 14th she went to see the oncologist for a routine appointment and the doctor asked her ‘would you like a prognosis?’. Lucy said 'yes', and, I think, she was expecting a year. She said it's more like up to 6 months. That was a shock and in the end,  she died on August 9th, less than a month later.

She was in hospital at the Whittington and her doctor told her she could be admitted to the Marie Curie in Hampstead for respite care. For the first week, I thought that was what it was going to be - we would get her strength up and she could come back home.

But then came the realisation and I said to Alan ‘she’s not coming home is she.’

It took me about a week to realise - at first we would drive up to see her, and she would be dressed and sitting in the chair and I could see her as we drove up; the next time she wouldn’t be sitting in the chair but she was dressed, and then one day she wasn’t dressed and it was that slow realisation that actually, she isn’t getting better. It wasn't respite.

In a way it was a relief that someone else was responsible for her care. I had always been confident in looking after her - I knew what she liked to eat and what she could tolerate and how to care for her.

I remember sitting in the dark next to her [at home] and thinking ‘what if I’m not doing something right? What if I should be doing something that could be helping her, but I don’t know how.’ It was a tremendous responsibility, I didn’t know if I was looking after her properly and she was in pain, so when she went into the hospice and the nurses and doctors took over, it was a relief. I felt she was safe and being taken care of and we could just be with her.”

Analie:  “The end when it came, came quickly. It was the end of April 2016 and she had to have electro-chemotherapy for a manifestation of the breast cancer in her skin. 

She went into the hospice at the end of July. Initially she was going in to try to get a little stronger, but the end came quickly, quicker than any of us thought really. At the beginning of July, she was told it could be 6 months to a year, which then changed to a matter of weeks and then less than 2 weeks.

The hospice was great, we couldn’t have asked for more, the freedom to come and go as we wanted. There were places we could go -
we could sit in the garden, she was on oxygen full time by then, but we could take her out there. She didn’t want to die at home. She wanted to be somewhere that her pain could be managed, and she didn’t want to be a burden on us, which was silly, but that’s how she felt. She had visitors up until the Saturday and she died on the Tuesday.

She wrote her will in the hospice, so she knew. She had been so positive and so strong for such long time but then she, not gave up, that’s not the right word, but she gave herself permission to say and feel that she had, had enough.

And typical of Lucy, once she made her mind up, it happened very quickly. 

The hospice made it so easy for us, everyone was amazing - from the doctors and nurses to the cleaners, just everyone made it easy for us to be with her.

They always went above and beyond. Mum and I stayed from the Saturday. I took her cat to see her, which again was lovely that we could do that. Nothing was too much trouble. We could have a cocktail hour in the corner of her room. Everyone was so kind and lovely.”

Jackie:   “It was lovely to be with her and the fact that we could all be together - we all slept there those last few days. The nurse was such a nice person - we were asleep, and she came in and said, ‘she’s taking her last breaths’ and we woke up and I am so grateful she came in and
said that to us, and we were all with her.”

We need businesses and communities across North London to come together this Christmas to help us be there for other families, like Jackie, Alan and Analie, who remember fondly their loved one Lucy, this Christmas.

Light up Christmas will fund care for families who are facing their last Christmas together.

There are two ways to support the campaign:

Make a donation - just click the donate button at the top.

You may decide to donate what you would normally spend on a Christmas Party or Christmas cards.

You could set up your Just Giving page 

You might hold a festive Jumper day with a prize for the wackiest jumper, you could do this virtually with a special “video call tea break” for the judging to take place.

If your staff are working from home at the moment, you could suggest they donate the cost of their normal weekly commute, or the price of their morning coffee.  You may even decide to match fund these donations.

We have lots of other festive fundraising ideas too, which we can share with you.

To thank you if you set up a just giving page or donate over £20 to our page we will:

• Provide you with a choice of custom Christmas e-cards to send to your staff, customers, clients, suppliers and friends, encouraging them to support too.
• Provide festive fundraising ideas.
• Hang a tag with your company name or logo on the Christmas Tree that will go up outside the Hospice in December.
• Light a paper lantern in the Hospice Garden on 23rd December

To give you some understanding on the impact of your donations, for Christmas Week we need to raise:

£952 to keep the lights on at the hospice for the week

£588 to heat the hospice for the week

£214.50 to provide home cooked hot meals on Christmas Day to all our patients

I really hope you will consider supporting our patients, their families and our nurses this Christmas.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas.

Tracy Annunziato
Community Fundraiser
Marie Curie Hospice, Hampstead.
Caring for people in 6 North London Boroughs