Simply Zoë celebrates two years!

On October 1st, Simply Zoë celebrated 2 years of being open for business! It has been quite the 12 months, so much has happened and there was such a busy start to the month that it quite slipped my mind!

I took the time to read back my blog celebrating one year and I am astonished to look back and see how much I achieved given the challenges of those 12 months, but then these past 12 months have been even more difficult than I, or any of us, could have even imagined!

October 2019 was particularly difficult. As many of you will be aware, my dad died after a short illness with lung cancer. I had no idea what that kind of grief would feel like and I wish that I still didn’t know. I wish so much that he hadn’t had to suffer the pain of the illness, nor lose his life. As a family, we were in a privileged position to be with him in those final weeks. He was a man that enjoyed the company of others and being in large groups. That we could be with him when the end came is some comfort. I miss him more than I could ever express.

November was a month of extremely mixed emotions. We held a celebration of dad’s life at our family home, it was harder than I thought it was going to be. As a family, we were able to celebrate the bittersweet joy of my PET scan being clear for the first time in 3 years, but not being able to call my dad and give him the news, as the first person I would always call with news, good and bad, was immensely sad. November was also the month that my collaboration with Vachement Suisse was debuted. We designed our exclusive “Fearless.” collection: a line of t-shirts and tote bags – with a percentage of all proceeds being donated to cancer research. I know dad would have been so proud of what we have gone on to achieve with this project a year down the line.

December was fairly quiet. I allowed myself time to rest, spend quiet time with my husband, and prepare for a first Christmas without dad. It was hard on all of us, but we managed to have a nice time together all the same.

January and February were quiet as well from a Simply Zoë perspective. Family comes first and my step-mother needed my support, so I spent a lot of time with her in January and February, helping to pack the house and to just be there. A lot of goodbyes needed to be said on my part as well, so I’m glad that I also gave myself some space to realise that there was much about life with dad in it that would change or cease to continue now that he was gone, so much to grieve.

Since cancer has decided to so firmly land itself at our front door, I decided in March that while I was so proud of what we were accomplishing with Fearless. I wanted to do more, so I made the decision that a percentage of sales of all Simply Zoë products would be donated to cancer research. I want to do everything that I can to help find a cure for this horrendous illness. But then the coronavirus decided to join the party and it wanted a massive knees-up didn’t it! I don’t think any of us realised what that would come to mean and where we would be with it today!! It did however, allow time to concentrate on personal health and fitness, get those jobs done at home that always get overlooked and honestly, just slow right down. I spent a lot of summer walking and sitting in the sun, spending some time in the family home with good friends, and really just recharged my batteries in a way that I never had before. I think it gave me the strength I needed when my PET scan in June showed that the illness was back and this time radiotherapy wasn’t really an option, so my oral medication was adjusted. Living with metastatic cancer isn’t easy and one really does need to allow oneself the time to mentally and physically adjust.

Fearless. started to gather momentum and in September, we found ourselves selling out and a decision had to be made. Was that a fun project but now we can draw the line under it, class it as a success and move on to something else, or do we throw ourselves into it and continue? The decision taken was to continue and we set about replenishing the existing design and designing a new item to coincide with October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, hence why I was so busy, missing our second anniversary until today!!

It’s been yet another crazy year and we start the third year with me continuing to face the health battles but enjoying where Fearless. is taking us and what we are able to contribute to cancer research. I hope you will continue to support us!

To celebrate our second year, we will give away one of our cute notebooks with every order over CHF 50 for the remainder of this month, while stocks last!