The Support That Carried Me Through Loss
Ciara Bolton | Marketing Executive
Recently, Carpenters Group colleagues attended the North West Cancer Research Ladies’ Lunch, an event that brought together people whose lives have been affected by cancer.
One attendee was Ciara Bolton, Marketing Executive. Last year, Ciara lost her mum, Claire, to cancer. Here, she reflects on her experience of grief, the conversations and stories shared on the day, and the support she received from her team during one of the most difficult periods of her life.
In 2025, the worst thing I could ever imagine happened. My mother died of cancer.
My mum, Claire, and I were extremely close. She was the first person I’d call when anything happened - whether it was good, bad, or even completely mundane. I moved out in February 2024 to a house only five minutes from my childhood home, yet we still spoke every day and I’d pop round at least six times a week.
She was the light in every room. The life of the party. She could have everyone in stitches, and she could also be exactly the person you needed in a crisis. She spent her life putting everyone else first. She was the most selfless person I’ve ever known. Because of that, in my mind she was somehow immortal. The idea of something happening to someone so full of life felt impossible. But cancer doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t pick favourites.
In March 2025, I’d just been offered a job as a Marketing Executive at Carpenters Group. I was so excited and my mum was beyond proud. I’d hear her telling her friends on the phone, making sure she repeated the word “executive” as many times as she could in the same sentence. She’d call me every day after work to ask how I was getting on, what my team were like, whether my manager liked me. I loved telling her how much I enjoyed the role, how brilliant my manager was, and how well the team worked together. I know it made her proud - not just that I’d found a good job, but that I’d found somewhere I genuinely enjoyed being.
By July 2025, I already felt like I belonged. I was learning new things every day, and I was loving it. Outside of work, though, my life had changed. I’d separated from my partner and moved back in with my mum. Around that time she started complaining that she was having trouble swallowing. Forever the optimist, I assumed it would be nothing. She was my mum - my “immortal” mum - so of course it would be nothing.
At the end of July, she was booked in for an endoscopy to see what was causing the problem. The day of her appointment, I went into her bedroom before work to wish her luck and tell her to call me afterwards. It was the first time I’d seen her look genuinely worried. She’d said more than once that she thought it was a hernia, but that day I saw real fear in her eyes. I reassured her, telling her nothing would happen – nothing could ever happen to her, someone so good.
When I arrived at the office, I mentioned the appointment to my manager, who told me that if I wanted to go and be with her, I could. At the time, I didn’t see the point. I was convinced everything would be fine.
I didn’t hear from my mum all morning, so I called her. She said it had gone fine, but there was an edge to her voice. When I pressed her, she told me they’d found something, but that she’d talk to me properly when I got home. I went back upstairs to my desk and tried not to cry. Not long after, my manager took me to one side and told me to go home and be with her.
When I got back, my mum told me they had found a mass in her oesophagus, and that the nurse had said it was “probably cancer”. They had taken biopsies and she would find out the results soon. From that moment on, she was never fully herself again. She became convinced she was going to die, and she fixated on it. Everyone tells you not to Google things like this, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know if there was hope - if she could get through it. What I read terrified me: only around 15% of people with oesophageal cancer survive five years or more. But in my head, my mum had to be part of that 15%.
After that came a rapid decline. In September, she was diagnosed with stage 4 oesophageal cancer, which had spread to lymph nodes near her stomach. Surgery wasn’t an option, but chemotherapy was.
Throughout that time, my manager and my team were incredible. I’m a people pleaser by nature, and I offered to work late into the night to make up for the time I spent at Clatterbridge with my mum whilst she had her treatment. They wouldn’t accept it. They didn’t want me thinking about work when my life was falling apart. My team covered my workload so I could be with my mum during the hardest period of her life, and I will always be grateful for that.
After two rounds of chemotherapy, my mum was too unwell to continue. We had converted the dining room into a downstairs bedroom for her, but she could no longer walk. She was nauseous all the time from the treatment, and because of where the cancer was, swallowing was painful. At the end of October, she made the decision to go into hospital. I was still in deep denial. I thought she would be home in a few days.
I was given some time off so I could visit her, with the intention that I would return once mum was feeling better. But after seeing her, I couldn’t shake the feeling this was the end. She had become a shell of herself. She didn’t want to speak, she wasn’t eating, she slept constantly, and above all she was angry - a kind of anger I had never seen in her before. My mum was always easy-going and upbeat, so seeing her like that was heart breaking.
On 11 November 2025, I was working from home. One of my mum’s friends, a priest, had travelled over from Ireland to visit her. I planned to go to the hospital after work, but my aunt returned from the hospital with Father Martin and called myself and my brother downstairs. They told me my mum wouldn’t be having any further treatment and that she was now receiving palliative, end-of-life care. They explained that doctors often measure how long someone may have left by how quickly they’ve declined, and in my mum’s case this meant days.
I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t lose my mum. I was only 30. How could I accept that she wouldn’t be at my wedding, or that she wouldn’t meet her grandchildren? It felt impossible.
At that point, I became very aware of how much time I’d had off work. I rang my manager, explained what was happening, and immediately started talking about how I would find a way to make the time back. In reality, I never needed to. I was told not to worry about work, to spend every possible second with my mum, and that support was there if I needed it. I will never be able to repay that kindness, empathy and understanding during the worst period of my life.
My mum died on 19 November 2025 at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, surrounded by me and my family. She was never on her own. She is buried in Ireland, near our family cottage in Kilkenny.
I was encouraged to take as much time as I needed, but I wanted to return to some sense of normality. I came back just before Christmas and was met by a team - and a wider business - who were so happy to see me and who did everything they could to make the process as easy as possible.
On Thursday 30 April, I attended the North West Cancer Research Ladies’ Lunch. I walked into a room full of people who, in one way or another, had all been affected by cancer. Some had lost parents, some partners, some friends. Others were living with cancer themselves. There was an immediate sense of understanding - the kind that doesn’t need explanation, because everyone already knows.
Sitting among people who had been through similar experiences was unexpectedly comforting. There was sadness, but there was also warmth, openness and generosity. People shared their stories without judgement or comparison. It was a reminder that while cancer can feel isolating when it happens to you, it is something that connects so many of us.
Throughout the afternoon, I kept thinking about how differently the past year could have felt without the support I received from my team. When my world stopped, I wasn’t asked to push through or hold everything together. Instead, people stepped in, protected my time, and allowed me to be exactly where I needed to be. That kind of support stays with you.
Events like the Ladies’ Lunch matter because they help fund research that could change outcomes for families like mine. With cancer, you never believe it will happen to you, and when it does, life changes very quickly. When my mum was diagnosed, there were moments where everything felt hopeless, where it felt as though there were no answers and no options. Supporting research is about making sure fewer families have to face that same reality in the future.
Leaving the lunch, I felt a mixture of emotions: sadness for what I’ve lost, gratitude for the support I’ve had, and a renewed sense of why these conversations matter. Cancer is not something that affects “other people”. It will touch most of us at some point in our lives, whether directly or through someone we love.
Sharing my story hasn’t been easy, but if it encourages even one person to feel less alone, or helps underline why continued investment in cancer research is so important, then these stories must be told.
