“We should all go to therapy.
Greg remains convinced that Clare decided when she was going to die. There must have been times when being taken for granted was a burden? It was not until June 2015 that cancer made its terrible comeback into her bones and Greg moved into her flat to take care of her and Grably (her attention-seeking cat). “Early on, you don’t know when grief’s going to hit you. Losing. Greg Wise claims his favorite thing to watch on TV is anything that involves David Attenborough. “We were all traumatised. A part of you is grateful and then you try not to give yourself a hard time for being grateful. She lived just down the street from the West Hampstead house her brother shares with his wife, Emma Thompson, and their daughter, Gaia. “She was open, ebullient, loved socialising.
Life is going to throw shit at you and it’s how you deal with it. It’s very important to be able to discuss stuff that is not necessarily appropriate to talk about with mates or family, especially at a time like that, when I was confronting my own mortality and my sister’s.
He was a regular throughout the two seasons and is slated to be a part of the upcoming third season as well. “I was relieved when it happened,” he admits. She restarted the blog, and her brother took it over in July 2016, when she became too ill. Greg, 51, continued to chart the highs and, increasingly, the lows of his sister’s last months, including the final 10 weeks when he became her sole carer.
And it may be because we have never been more anxious about our future, with Brexit, Trump and North Korea. It involved more than going to premieres of films (although this was an undeniable perk). Apart from these ventures, he also made a comeback in theatre when he starred in ‘Kill Me Now’, by Brad Fraser, in 2015. Clare even started a witty blog to keep everyone informed about what was happening with her health. It is fuelled by wisdom and wisecracks, a story of brotherly, and sisterly, love. But they had moments when it was just the two of them and they were able to talk.” In Kerala, Clare admitted to Emma that she wished she had let a different sort of love into her life. I told her that she didn’t have to worry, that everything was sorted. “It was our way of saying: ‘Please, please, leave us alone. For there was a contract struck between us that went all the way back to when we were three.” But he then adds the emphatic afterthought that he was not a one-man band. We forget that. At the point where the palliative care needs to kick in, we have to be professional enough to have that conversation.” He recognises that palliative care has become a fine art: “It is extraordinary.” And he explains: “One of the main conversations you have as a carer is: what is the trade-off between pain management and still being able to be active, if that is what you want to be?”, He briefly speculates, too, about why there is a cancer epidemic at the moment. “I’ve had very few days when I’ve not been actively doing something about Clare, be it probate, sorting out her flat, moving furniture – or just the book.” The book is Not That Kind of Love and is a shared effort, written by Clare and Greg. Greg Wise and Clare, London, autumn 1995. Subscribe for only £5.49 a month and enjoy all the benefits of the printed paper as a digital replica. On 23 November 2015, Clare writes: “I feel pretty good – have a new trendy pixie haircut (courtesy of my sis-in-law).” It was Emma who took on the not unchallenging task of giving her a shower. But I wasn’t.”. She had been about to go with Greg, Emma and Gaia on the “holiday of a lifetime to Greece”.
She relies on him to come with her to hospital appointments knowing he will charm the nurses, tell the right jokes, keep her going. His parents, Douglass Wise and Yvonne Jeannine Czeiler, were reputed architects. What would it have been like had she been with us this morning? Passing. It was on 12 September 2015 that Clare described in her blog the moment of being told: “Clare, you have incurable bone cancer…” Her reaction? He was nominated for several awards, and the movie was widely praised by critics.
Today, he has organised elevenses with good coffee and patisserie.