Tonight The Chapel is hosting a marvellous, flower-filled, drinks reception that focuses rather awkwardly on the part of your wedding vows that luckily most of us are too naive to understand when we make them.
Nicola Tait, the incredible force of nature, I first got to know as a member of Miss Bush’s Saturday team and subsequently as a robust mosh-pit companion and back stage blagger in the early days of Kings of Leon. I seem to remember some missing Sundays listening to acoustic sets and some tall stories of epic nights out. Somehow Nicola managed to combine this with a marketing career, cupcake business and embryonic online agency. If this wasn’t enough I used to see Facebook updates about fundraising runs and cycles with such dizzying regularity I wondered when she slept.
In 2014 I was following Prudential Ride London race (from bed, on Facebook!) I was getting updates from the starting line, where Nicola and partner Kris along with a host of friends, were riding the Olympic route which starts in London and winds its way through Surrey taking in Ripley. As much as we mutter about the MAMILS in the village, Ripley does love the spectacle.
Cheery photos ‘liked’ and then not much further thought about the race until I checked my Facebook feed later in the day which was full of horror and stunned sympathies. I scrolled up and down, followed links, checked on Get Surrey and stalked to work out why such messages of support had changed to messages of condolence.
Kris Cook and Nicola Tait at the start of Prudential Ride London in 2014
The tragic reality dawned that Kris had collapsed and died from a previously undiagnosed heart condition.
Laura and her late husband Paul Caudery on their wedding day.
On its own Kris’s death is tragic; it robbed Nicola and he of a future they were planning. Sudden death doesn’t give you time for goodbyes, for planning. There is no ‘good’ way to be bereaved you just understand the shock of the circumstances better if you have lived through it yourself. Both Laura Caudery (of Fetcham Park) and I, among a greater number of people than I care to think of, have experienced the same. I know what grieving and helping (or sometimes just watching others grieve and feeling helpless) is like. Sometimes, somedays there is just no getting up from it. As you drive around wiping snot from your nose and tears just don’t stop you wonder if people in the traffic jam think you are nuts.
The miracle is you witness women that you already know to be strong, emerge from grief no less powerful, certainly not weakened, but with a drive to achieve a lasting testament to their partners. Whether it is fundraising, driving up awareness, surviving bleak days or bringing up kids to know their missing parent.
I donated to Kris’s Just Giving page. The only pin prick of brightness is that he raised £50k online and £50k offline for Woking Hospice. Woking Hospice have provided valuable outreach bereavement counselling at my son’s school…
Ed and our three children from whom he was taken far too soon
This year Nicola has decide to make Team KC official, with kits backed by Surrey businesses which I am proud that Miss Bush is one. Team KC is named after Kris Cook and is liveried in purple. The team rides in memory of Kris, continues to fund raise and welcomes anyone who wants to take on their first challenge whether it be 5k or cycling to Paris.
The team continues to raise awareness and funds for CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) and Woking Hospice, the two charities that helped support Nicola and Kris’s family.
Tonight Miss Bush is hosting a drinks reception to support and honour both the team, the memory of Kris and Nicola for being an inspiration.
I am being supported by Rosie Orr, Two Many Cooks and Taurus Wines. Follow the hashtag #TKC2016, drop in and say ‘hi’ if you are local.
Emma x
