‘The grief never goes away’: the sadness that drives Carrie Bickmore to make change
ADORED TV host Carrie Bickmore opens up about the tragic loss of her husband Greg to brain cancer and how grief still drives her today.
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GRIEF is a strange thing to live with.
It can strike with ferocity in the most unlikely of circumstances and then be totally absent in the obvious ones, Carrie Bickmore has discovered over the past six years.
Her husband Greg Lange died in 2010, just two days after Christmas, following a long battle with brain cancer.
The sadness — that awful sense of loss — never entirely goes away, she says.
“I don’t know if I want it to though,” Bickmore admits. “It’s a strange thing, but I guess it’s wanting to know that person is still with you in some way.”
When The Project co-host walked onto stage to accept her gold statuette at the Logie Awards in 2015, donning a blue beanie and giving an impassioned speech about the disease that took her husband, she couldn’t have imagine the reaction that would follow.
Her heartfelt plea for awareness and support resonated across the country. People wanted to chip in, to help the TV star make a difference, and so Carrie’s Beanies For Brain Cancer was born.
“The foundation has given me a positive place to channel a lot of the feelings I have,” Bickmore says.
“It’s also a real legacy for Greg and a legacy for (son) Ollie as well. And it’s gone so well. I’m humbled by everyone’s support and generosity. I can’t believe we’ve raised $1.2 million in just over a year.”
Through a concert fundraiser and the sale of designer beanies, which completely sold out this winter, her organisation has been able to splash much-needed cash on vital research projects.
“The money is going to make a difference and hopefully one day other families don’t have to go through what I went through,” Bickmore says.
A few months ago, she walked into the Royal Melbourne Hospital for the first time in years.
The moments she’d spent there before with Greg were often plagued by a sense of hopelessness, she says — a foreboding of what was to come.
“It’s where Greg had his surgery, a place where I’d never felt much hope. But to go back this year to present a cheque for $250,000 to the Neuroscience Foundation, to this exciting research project, I felt hope.
“I feel really positive about the brain cancer space and everything that’s going on. I feel fortunate to be part of it … it wasn’t until after my Logies speech that I realised the power I had to raise money. Had it not been for that reaction to my speech, I don’t think I would’ve done it.”
It’s been a big year for Bickmore and she’s completely exhausted.
Her duties on Network Ten’s hit news-entertainment show keeps her busy enough. It’s a job she’s still as energised by now as she was at the start seven years ago.
“I think it’s because there have been so many changes, some different hosts … I’ve never had that lull where it feels like Groundhog Day.
“I love it, and Waleed, Pete and I are so close. We get along like a house on fire.”
She came across a tape of the show’s very first episode recently and couldn’t believe how much the show and she herself have changed.
“No one can ever see that footage,” Bickmore laughs. “It needs to be a hidden in a dungeon somewhere. It’s amazing how much things have evolved.”
Oliver, nine, and daughter Evie, 18-months, are a delightful handful too, she says.
“Evie is a delight — a real little firecracker and so funny. And Ollie, watching him grow up and seeing the kind of man he’s becoming has been so wonderful.”
Add the almost fulltime commitment to the foundation and various media and endorsement commitments and it’s not hard to see why she’s keen for a break
“Every year I’m a bit tired at the end and ready to switch off, but this one more than ever. It’s been full on — all great stuff that I’m really thankful for. But I’m spent.
“I have a break coming up. We’re going to do a staycation. I’m looking forward to sitting in the sun, if it comes out in Melbourne this summer, and hanging with the kids. And not checking my phone.”
THE PROJECT, Network Ten, weekdays, 6.30pm
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