Farewell Caitlin Moorhouse, courageous and gracious to the end

Posted on 24 August, 2020

HerCanberra lost a friend this weekend with the passing of 39-year-old Caitlin Moorhouse.

Caitlin was diagnosed with Stage 4 Bowel Cancer five years ago, just weeks after giving birth to her daughter Violet. But she fought with courage and grace to fit in as many years as she could with her precious child, her devoted husband David, her friends and family.

We published this interview with Caitlin in May.

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Every minute of every hour of every day is time to be savoured by Caitlin Moorhouse. She was told five years ago to get her affairs in order.

The last thing Caitlin was expecting just weeks after jubilantly welcoming her first-born daughter Violet into the world was to find out she had stage 4 bowel cancer that had spread to her liver.

In fact, she was feeling fine, save for the sharp pain she was experiencing in her shoulder—which she’d put down to lifting her newborn.

The public servant, who was otherwise in good health, went for an ultrasound scan. By that afternoon her baby bubble—and everything else—was shattered by her doctor’s unspeakable truth.

Caitlin had cancer—a primary in her bowel had invaded her body without any symptoms or family history and it was now advanced. There were too many tumours in her liver to even count.

“I remember walking through Garema Place after seeing my doctor, ringing my mum and sobbing that I didn’t want to die.”

“I felt pure terror for the first time in my life. I measured everything in relation to how long I could possibly stay with Violet. Anything I had wanted to do with my life was secondary to just staying with Violet as long as I could.”

Caitlin with daughter Violet.

While the diagnosis carried with it a five percent chance of surviving five years, Caitlin was very clear that she did not want to be limited by a timeframe— a wish she and her family vociferously communicated to her medical team at every stage.

“It makes me very angry when doctors give specific time predictions. The spoken word is powerful and we need to be very conscious of the words we speak into people’s lives, particularly when they are vulnerable.”

Overnight, everything changed.

Instead of starting mothers’ group and playdates with her baby, Caitlin and her husband David uprooted from their Griffith home to go to Melbourne and live with Caitlin’s mum while she began treatment at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

The litany of chemotherapy courses, surgeries—one of which was life-threatening—clinical trials and treatment regimens has been Caitlin’s life now for five years.

But there has been incalculable joy in experiencing every one of those years.

“Early on I realised that the only time I had was now and if I was miserable then I was robbing myself. So I try very hard to be the me I always was.”

Caitlin focuses on spending time with Violet and David, seeing her friends and family, going to work, travelling, reading.

“I don’t have a bucket list. Just a wish to keep living my ordinary, beautiful life.”

Caitlin with Violet and husband David.

Her next goal is to see her fortieth birthday which is in February 2021.

“The first three years felt very long. They were very hard, I was extremely sick at points, and I felt like we were eking out time. The last year and a half has flown though, and I can’t believe how much Violet has grown and changed.”

In her blog, The Fairytale and the Abyss, Caitlin has chronicled her journey.

“Sometimes when Violet is crying and I am comforting her or even when she is smiling with her pure baby joy at me, I feel overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and shame that I’m leading her down the garden path. That I’m creating promises of love and comfort that I won’t be able to keep.

“And it’s heartbreaking—literally a physical pain to know that you will be the cause of terrible sadness for your child, for whom you should be their safest place.”

“The hardest thing is not the physical treatments—it is the relentlessness of pushing myself to keep trying, keep believing, keep hoping. I do have moments sometimes when I think maybe I should stop treatment and let the disease take its course but I know that fundamentally that’s not who I am. I’m not a passive person—and that has remained constant throughout my disease.”

Post Script

Today Caitlin is remembered by boss Bruce Taloni, the Assistant Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, where Caitlin was working until just a few months ago.

“Caitlin was a passionate and skilled public servant. She was thoughtful of, and greatly respected by, her colleagues. She was a beautiful drafter, articulate and precise with her words—something that can be seen in her blog (The Fairytale and the Abyss). She always got to the heart of an issue and suggested clever solutions. There are few with her genuine commitment to making a difference and to providing sage advice.

“In December 2015 Caitlin wrote, ‘my anxious temperament and critical spirit paired with my reasonably quick brain found a happy home in the public service. I thought I would have a big career in government and public policy. I thought I would make some difference.’ A difference Caitlin certainly made.”

She is also remembered by her dear friend Alicia Keers.

“Caitlin and I met in our mid-twenties. We formed our friendship at that young, bright age when we were grown-ups but were largely unscathed by life, and blissfully unaware that time would not always be on our side.

Caitlin was engaging and enthusiastic. The first thing that struck me about Caitlin were her eyes. At first I thought it was their piercing colour, but over time I realised they were engaging because they showed her fearlessness. True fearlessness, I’ve learned from Caitlin, is the ability to pursue your goals without fear of failure, to decide without doubt, to love without fear of being hurt.

And that is how Caitlin loved all those around her. Especially her darling Violet, who is the most joyous child and whose eyes remind me so much of Caitlin.”

In trying to find the words to describe losing Caitlin, I’ll quote one of my favourite writers, Caitlin Moorhouse, writing about a dear friend she lost to cancer in 2017:

I’m glad she is not in pain but I am furious that she is gone. For this cancer, you are not forgiven. I hope she is somewhere beautiful where things make more sense.