Samantha Fraser

Walking for Love, Walking for Memory

This March, I’m walking with the Banham Marsden March not just with my feet, but with my heart full of people I love and miss every single day.

I’m walking in memory of my little nanny, my grandad David, and my big grandad John — three lives, three stories, three enormous gaps left behind by cancer.

They were my safe places.

The people who made time slow down just by being there.

I loved spending time with them. The ordinary moments mattered most — sitting together, laughing at nothing special, feeling that quiet comfort that only family gives. Those moments didn’t feel big at the time, but they were everything. Now they live in memory, glowing softly, refusing to fade.

Cancer doesn’t just take lives.

It takes futures that should have happened.

More conversations. More hugs. More time.

Some days the missing feels loud. Other days it’s a quiet ache that sits beside me while I carry on. Grief has no schedule. Love doesn’t either.

So I walk.

I walk to honour my little nanny’s warmth and kindness.

I walk for my grandad David’s strength and love.

I walk for my big grandad John, whose presence filled the room just by standing in it.

Every step is a thank you.

Every mile is an “I remember.”

Every blister is proof that love doesn’t stop when life does.

The Banham Marsden March is about funding research, hope, and better outcomes — but for me, it’s also about connection. It’s about saying their names out loud and refusing to let their stories disappear into statistics.

I carry them with me.

Always have. Always will.

This walk is for them. 💛