Jo's Story- running for my friend Beth

Jo ran last year’s Hospice Run 10k, in memory of her friend Beth. Here she remembers Beth and how the race helped her to work through the loss of someone so special.

Jo and Beth formed a close friendship both in and out of school.  ‘She was many things to me. We got on very, very well. She inspired me.  I remember her very clearly  saying, “You’d be a great teacher. I believe in you. You can do this.”  She was very encouraging and I qualified just after she died.’

Beth’s cancer diagnosis came out of the blue in 2019. ‘She was staying with us in France and I noticed that she was avoiding eating. When I asked her she would say that sometimes it hurt to eat.

‘A few months later I got a call to say that she was off sick from school. I rang her and she said she’d had a funny turn in the night and had collapsed. It wasn’t like Beth to be sick, so I drove down to see her. I had this horrible feeling the pit of my stomach – this is not right, it’s not a normal bug.  We talked about her going to the doctor, having some tests.  I look back now and wonder if she knew that it was something worse.’

Beth went for an endoscopy (a procedure to look inside the upper body). A blockage was detected. ‘They immediately ran tests and biopsies and she was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer.  It was a big shock as this type of cancer is normally found in elderly men. She was so young. It seemed very cruel and unreal.

‘I’m sure other people have this feeling. The person in front of you is alive and your age, 40, and yet they’re telling you they’re not going to be there in a couple of months. It’s very difficult to grasp.

Beth passed away overnight on January 31 2021. Jo still finds it hard to believe her friend is no longer here. ‘Six weeks after Beth passed away we went into lockdown. We were due to mark her loss at the school with a celebration of her life and a memorial service. Cancelling that was difficult and one of the reasons why I thought doing the Hospice 10k was a positive way to mark her passing.’

It also helped Jo to process her sense of loss. Because of Covid, Jo trained and ran the race on her own rather than in a group. ‘I thought of Beth all the way round. I know she would have thought I was mad, but we would have gone round together. Slowly. At the end there is a last horrible hill, which I wasn’t expecting, so I was really digging deep and I cried when I crossed the finishing line.  But it did something positive in memory of Beth. It supported Hospice and the work they do for people. So it was a win-win really.’