A mom whose daughter and husband died days apart has remarried a widower who lost his wife and child. She says their bond has helped them heal.
Alice Palmer, 68, from Anfield, in Liverpool, England, was a lifetime carer to her daughter, Beth, 20, who suffered from cerebral palsy and other health issues. Alice’s world was turned upside down when her husband, John, then 61, was diagnosed with cancer in March 2019; at the time, Beth’s health had also begun to decline. Alice would spend her day visiting them both in separate hospitals.
Alice was devastated when Beth passed away in August that year, and then, days later, John passed away too. Heartbroken, Alice had to organize a double funeral for Beth and John with their coffins laid side by side.
Nearly three years later, Alice met her second husband, Lee Palmer, 58, on a support site to connect grieving widows and widowers. A painter and decorator, Lee lost his wife, Michelle, then 59, in 2019, to a sudden heart attack after losing his son Joe, 17, in 2013, to sepsis. The couple’s relationship bloomed as they supported one another through their traumas; they married in March 2022.
Alice said: “I never thought I would find love again, I just felt a deep sadness and loneliness like there was nobody I could feel close to. ... I was very wary after what I had been through—the fear of losing them and being hurt again.
“But we have both been through it; we both have doubts sometimes, but it is a relief and a comfort to love and be loved again.
“You have to learn to live with the loss, otherwise it eats away at you—it’s not easy, but you have to move on.”
Lee said: "After I lost Joe and Michelle, I realized none of my close friends or family had lost anyone in that way, and it was hard. When I decided to join that [support] group it felt good to speak to other people who had also lost their children and partners.
“After speaking to Alice online for a while, I thought ‘I like this woman, I like her a lot’, and I wanted to meet her. I never went on the group looking for romance but there was just something about her.
“When we met, we just clicked. Now we’re married, and it’s nice to feel alive again. I spent nine or ten months on my own, and now I have someone to look forward to when I get home from work.”
Alice’s daughter, Beth, was starved of oxygen at birth and had quadriplegic cerebral palsy, scoliosis, blindness, and epilepsy as a result; the mother-daughter duo was very close. Alice’s first husband was diagnosed with liver cancer after experiencing pain in his ribcage in March 2019.
Just months later in June 2019, Beth’s condition worsened after she woke up in pain and ended up in intensive care. John’s cancer was deemed terminal around the same time, and by August he had been moved to a local hospice to live out his final days. Alice spent weeks traveling between Beth’s intensive care ward and John’s hospice to support them both at the same time.
Alice got a phone call on Aug. 26, 2019, informing her that her daughter had passed away, at the age of 20. Six days later, Alice learned that John had passed away as well. She planned a joint funeral for John and Beth—with a pink coffin for Beth, and a traditional one for John, side by side.
“I think having to organize the double funeral was the worst, it was so sad,” she said. “Then at the funeral, walking behind the two coffins in the church, it was devastating.”
Alice was so traumatized she couldn’t sleep at home for months, staying with her sisters because the house felt so empty. One of the ways she dealt with the grief was by joining a website for widows and widowers to support each other through their losses.
That was when she first spoke to Lee, who then lived in Colchester, Essex. They met in person for the first time in June 2020. “I was very wary going back into dating, but I didn’t want to be alone all the time,” Alice said. “Both having lost spouses, it was a question of trusting each other that you won’t get hurt again. I’m a very needy person—I wanted to be loved again after everything.”
In January 2021, Lee moved up to Liverpool to live with Alice, and they married a year later. Alice said she wore an emblem of Beth on her dress, while Lee wore one of Joe on his lapel. Despite Beth and Joe not being there to celebrate, Alice said it was a “happy day” for them both.
“You have to rebuild,” she said. "We both saw on that widow site, a lot of people who give up hope of ever being happy again. Some people just wait to die, it seems. And that’s such a waste.
“In my view, you have to learn to live with your loss otherwise it eats away at you. You have to move on.”
