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By Daniella Gray, Katie Dove, and Howard Dove
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Katie: Our daughter Evie was the kindest, funniest, most loving girl you could ever meet.
From when she was tiny, she cared about people and wanted to be friends with everybody.
When friends fell out, Evie was often the one who brought them back together. She had so much light and love to give to the world.
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Her brother, Teddy, also adored her. If it were possible to be closer than twins, they were.
They were inseparable.
We were just a normal family. Little did we know, our lives were about to change forever.
Howard: On April 1, 2021, Evie had spent the day at the beach with some friends.
While she was having dinner at one of the friend's houses afterward, we got a call from the parents to say Evie had suffered some form of seizure.
We rushed over there and took her straight to The Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate.
The whole thing was unimaginably out of the blue. One minute we were waiting for her to come home and the next, we were sitting beside our healthy 12-year-old in the emergency ward.
Evie suffered another seizure in the hospital and before midnight that night, a CT scan revealed a growth on her brain.
We had absolutely no knowledge of that world—no clue if there's anything you could do or what was going to happen.
The following morning, Evie was transferred to King's College Hospital where a surgeon told us not to lose hope, and not all brain tumors lead to the worst-case scenario, to remain optimistic.
We clung to that hope.
Around three weeks after her first seizure, Evie underwent her first major brain surgery, which lasted for about 11 hours.
Amazingly, surgeons removed the entire tumor, but it was aggressive, and doctors told us it would come back.
After sending a biopsy sample, it was confirmed that Evie had a stage 4 glioblastoma, a rare and highly aggressive form of brain cancer which is incurable.
But we never gave up. The doctors never gave up. They said it's not hopeless and there are treatments we can try.
We never wanted to ask the question, is my child going to die?
It was a conscious decision, because we knew that, in a way, you were either in camp A or camp B.
Some parents go in and ask those questions, but we chose not to. All we wanted to know was what can we do? What’s the solution? How do we keep going?
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Katie: The doctors wanted to "throw the kitchen sink at it" as they put it.
Through the radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, Evie never complained.
She was on a ward with very sick children, and she would read stories to them, play with them and just make sure they were okay. She blew us away.
When Evie first became ill, she said she wanted therapy dogs.
I’d always been a very firm no dogs mom, but as soon as she became poorly, it was a "yes" straightaway.
The next thing I knew, I was at the hospital Googling dachshunds, and we had one on order.
Then Teddy said, what about me? So we decided we had to have two dachshunds.
In Evie's last few months, it was so important to us to make memories, so we traveled a lot, with the dachshunds of course.
We would take them out for walks and lunches all over the country.
In the end, Evie had a wheelchair and her dog, Pip, would sit on her lap and we'd wheel them along together.
That’s why we feel so strongly about making memories. When you go somewhere and take a photograph, that moment is etched in your mind, but you also have the picture to look back on and remember it.
You never truly realize the value of a memory until it’s all you have.
Howard: By February 2022, Evie's tumor had returned. We weren't even sure she would survive the week.
While she was still in QEQM, her consultant got in touch and said she could operate on Evie the following morning.
That surgery afforded us four more weeks with her. Being able to spend time with her for a bit longer was so precious.
Evie passed away on March 6, 2022 at 13 years old. Our lovely, sweet, funny, goofy girl was brave right until the very end.
The care we received throughout Evie's treatment was exceptional at every stage.
Traveling together, allowing Evie to return to school briefly, all of that was only possible because of the amazing people who cared for her.
They never stopped giving us hope, and they gave us time together. Those are the most precious gifts anyone could give us.
Katie: In the aftermath, we learned to be kind to each other.
Sadly, so many parents are not able to stay together after going something so terribly traumatic, but actually, I think it brought us together even more.
It showed us what was important in life.
Weirdly, it's changed me as a person for the better. I appreciate what I have and it's made me more determined to carry on making wonderful memories and help Teddy achieve extraordinary things.
Howard: That gets you up in the mornings, knowing you have this responsibility for this young boy who has also just lost his sister, so we have to be there for him and enrich his life.
At some point, I thought I need to live for Evie too.
Katie: We keep Evie's memory alive by talking about her all the time.
We also set up a charity in her name called The Evie Dove Foundation to improve outcomes for seriously ill children.
Since it was established in 2022, the charity has supported more than 330 healthcare workers with specialist training, helping them progress into senior roles and deliver life-saving, compassionate care to children and families across the U.K.
To date, the foundation has raised over £800,000 ($1,058,556) which just shows we can achieve incredible things, even in the face of unimaginable loss.
Through our fundraising events and sponsored challenges, so many people say to me that they feel like they knew Evie.
They feel like they know what she looked like, what she liked and all her little mannerisms.
It’s so lovely that people who weren’t lucky enough to meet her or spend time with her now feel as though they knew the wonderful person she was.
Being able to share her story and give so many more people a glimpse into her life, despite how short it was, is a really special thing.
Katie and Howard Dove, 49 and 56, live in Kent, U.K., with their son Teddy, 16, and their three dachshunds. The Evie Dove Foundation was established in memory of their daughter, Evie, who died from a brain tumor. The charity aims to improve outcomes for seriously ill children.
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Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Rebecca Flood and Emma Lee-Sang
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