On 30 April 2025, I said goodbye to my mom on a video call. Around 15 minutes later, she passed away.

It’s strange thing to lose someone who you don’t see regularly because they live in another country, and even stranger when you haven’t been able to properly speak to them in over six months – towards the end of her life, Alzheimer’s had robbed my mom of her ability to really engage on phone calls, and text messages were certainly out of the question. Grieving is a complicated process, no matter who you lose and what your relationship was with them (and my mom and I by no means had a perfect relationship…maybe that makes it more complicated…but she was still my mom). Processing that grief from a distance makes for an even more surreal experience – in some ways she was lost to me before she was gone, but the reality of her death still comes in waves at some of the most unexpected moments. Today would have been her 73rd birthday, and so I thought I would share the eulogy I gave at her funeral to mark the occasion in some small way.

Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease. It feels as if it steals a bit more of a person’s identity with each memory it erases. But fortunately, those of us who are left behind don’t lose our precious memories of the person who is gone, and I am lucky to have so many of my mom, that it’s impossible to squeeze them all into one short speech. So, I’ll try and give you a little bit of a snapshot of who she was to me.

When I think of her now, it will be of dancing wildly to Eddy Grant in our lounge at home when I was very small, or singing along to Bette Davis Eyes in the car on the way to school in the morning. Of other road trips, when she would spontaneously say let’s drive an hour down the coast to buy bread and milk, just for fun, or when she would (probably a little grudgingly) do the late-night run to fetch me and my friends from whatever party or school disco we’d been at. Always still singing along, even when the choice of music became mine, and it was more about the Pixies and Nirvana, although she was happiest when I opted for the middle ground of the Counting Crows.

I will think of a woman who loved a glacé cherry in her glass of white wine – and I’m sure the wine snobs among us are cringing right now, but I thought she was the height of sophistication as I was growing up in the 80s. A woman who hated vegetables in all their forms, and never forced us to eat them either – in fact, she would frequently make different meals for me and my sister, catering to our preferences. This despite the fact that she was a single mom with limited resources, something we never really felt because she didn’t let us. And every December, she would dole out giant balls of marzipan to keep us occupied while she made Christmas cakes. Ever the skilled negotiator.

I will think of a woman who never met a cat, or any animal really, that she wouldn’t give it all up for. I’m sure anyone who knew her over the years here in Ireland would know just how much she loved not only her own cats, but any wayward feline that she came across. I believe they found their way to her because they knew she would offer respite. Even if at times we were all telling her NO MORE CATS. And she was always like that. From as early as I can recall, we would foster cats that she had rescued from the factory at the company where she worked – most times those foster cats found other homes, but occasionally they stayed with us, and joined our menagerie. At one point or another over the years, we had cats, dogs, parrots, lovebirds, fish, ducks, chickens, and even a tortoise that we rescued from one of the cats. Dr Dolittle had nothing on her.

I will think of the way she instilled that love of animals in her children, along with so many other things. Her love of swimming, nurtured through many trips to the beach in Durban and days spent lazing around the pool at home. Her passion for reading and storytelling, fostered by teaching us that books were something to be excited about. We could always be sure of receiving at least one book for every Christmas and birthday while we were growing up. Her dark sense of humour, which carried all of us through the best and the worst of times.

I will think of a woman who definitely walked to the beat of her own drum, and wasn’t afraid to do so. She was so often larger than life – if Carole was in the room, you knew it. She drew people to her with her quirky stories and that sense of humour, and she was never afraid to be candid. You absolutely knew where you stood with her. She was also never afraid to be different or to stand up for what she believed in. So, she raised us to be brave, to be ourselves, and to speak out against injustice and inequality at a time when South Africa was riddled with both. She showed us that even when life is hard, there is power in choosing love. She came to Ireland to be close to family, and stayed because she found enduring love with John. Above everything else, she taught us that we could do and be anything we wanted.

I will carry her with me, and it will be the version of her that exists in all these tiny memories. I’m sure each of you has your own special memories, and your own version of her to hold close. Like I said at the start, Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease, and towards the end, it had robbed her of some of her special spark. But we get to keep that spark alive, and I hope she gets to find it again now, in the stars.