Kind Words
A touching exploration of turning grief into action.
A widower reflects on grief, family, and the power of love in this debut memoir and travelogue.
Carter first met Melitta Alevropoulos in the southeastern African nation of Malawi, where they were both working in the 1980s. On their first social outing together with a group of mutual friends, the pair hiked up Mount Mulanje, where the two held hands and fell in love. More than two decades later, married with three children, the couple first heard the devastating diagnosis that Melitta had terminal cervical cancer.
In this poignant reflection on loss, Carter writes that he cried not only for the life of his partner but “for the graduations and weddings she would miss, the grandchildren she would never see, our children, and myself.” After a year of grieving, the author decided to act on his wife’s “simple credo that we should leave the world a better place.” Fittingly, given Melitta’s love of the outdoors, Carter decided to complete a 4,295-mile walk along the coasts of England and Wales as part of a yearlong awareness and fundraising campaign fighting cervical cancer. “Buttressed by purpose, support from friends and strangers, and CRUK [Cancer Research UK],” he writes, the journey taught him the “salving power of the outdoors” and introduced him to a network of other individuals whose lives had been upended by cervical cancer. Leavening his journey through grief with more lighthearted tales of his walk, he describes one of “the seven marvels of my tasting world”: the first sip of beer after a day of physical exertion in the hot sun. An optimist by nature, the author repeatedly reminds readers of the importance of living a full life with those we love. At just under 200 total pages, this accessible book features a conversational, engaging text that is accompanied by maps of the 373-day trek. This is a moving tribute to a wife, mother, and daughter taken too soon.”
Statement from Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust:
“We’re extremely honoured we were part of Laurence’s journey, and as we remember Melitta, Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust is eternally grateful to Laurence and the Carter family for all their support and for all that they are doing to help raise awareness of cervical cancer.
This book tells a beautiful love story and describes how Laurence’s epic trek helped him to cope with the immeasurable grief he felt after losing his wife to cervical cancer.
This is a beautifully moving and often humorous account of Laurence’s incredible journey around the coastlines of England and Wales, battling the inclement British weather in a pair of shorts, and tells the poignant story of how time, reflection and chance encounters helped one man learn to live again after losing the love of his life to cervical cancer.”
