Tribute to Holly Kennedy by Anne Roche

Holly Made a Huge Contribution to Cancer Patients in Ireland and All Over the World

This is a tribute to our dear friend and colleague Holly Kennedy. I first met Holly when she reached out to ask us to contribute to Happy Magazine.  It is such a fabulous magazine. I was so happy someone had decided to produce something like this. This was the magazine that I would love to have produced myself!

Then I met Holly at the Marie Keating Foundation’s Living with Cancer program.

A subsequent coffee meeting was arranged. Holly wanted to share the things she had discovered on her cancer journey that had helped her or were helping her. I thought we were meeting for 30 minutes,  but 2 hours later I emerged having made both a professional and a personal connection!  Holly and I had so much to talk about. We shared a passion for wellness and holistic health, the outdoors, healthy living, and campervans!  Both of our families had a campervan.

Holly and I immediately clicked and she came on board with us in Roches looking after our social media. It is a tribute to Holly that our social media really got off the ground. She understood our world so that was very successful. In the meantime, Holly and I became friends.

During the Summer of 2019, when Holly started to experience some pain, I was also having some major health issues. Holly was so kind to me.  Little did I know that my symptoms would transpire into a non-fatal autoimmune disease, while her symptoms revealed the sad news that her cancer had returned.

Holly took on her cancer with dignity and courage. She was such a lovely, gentle, kind person, with formidable strength.

She was a woman who was kind and considerate in equal measure, and also very determined, with a mind of her own.

Holly gave up her secure job to pursue her passion project – Happy magazine –  to great success and accolade, despite multiple and formidable obstacles from established cancer organisations in Ireland. Holly persevered but told me personally it was devastating for her.

Following Holly’s latest diagnosis, she eventually stopped writing for Roches but we stayed friends. I started to share my Simonton Cancer Care Course with Holly and another woman, who also had stage 4.
For a couple of months,  3 of us met in Holly’s house for our ‘group therapy’. We did visualization, meditation, and belief work, and then talked about everything they had been researching to help drive their bodies and minds in the direction of health.

Kasia and Holly became good friends too and sometimes traveled together for Hyperbaric Oxygen Sessions and Vitamin C infusions.

Holly later told me that Kasia was the like-minded companion she had been looking for, as they both lived with stage 4 cancer.

Holly had a huge heart, a gentle soul, and an open and searching mind. She was a person of formidable strength of character and an entrepreneur with a vision. On behalf of all of us at Roches, we miss Holly and always will.  We didn’t just lose a colleague, we also lost a friend. Our thoughts are with Holly’s family.