it's a word peppered throughout Chris MacKenzie's conversation. He knows the importance the Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice plays in the lives of families all over Glasgow.

As LINDA ROBERTSON discovered, when Chris's wife Eve, above, died last year, the care she received at the hospice eased the pain for them both.

IT is just over a year since Eve's death. Chris MacKenzie admits it is not easy, but he wants to lend his voice to our Brick by Brick campaign to help raise £15million for a new state-of-the-art hospice next to Bellahouston Park.

He said: "I know, having experienced it, how crucial the new hospice is for everybody's future.

"Eve's experience at the end, and mine after she died – it helped us so much.

"On reflection, the thing that astonishes me is to look back at that devastating experience which I hope will be the worst thing that will ever happen, and be able to take positives from it.

"That's why I'm really grateful that she was here. It's an incredible testament to the kind of work they do."

Dr Eve Marie Lutz-MacKenzie, who worked at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, was a scientist of international repute in the field of molecular biology.

She was also a mum to Eilidh, 13 and Isobel Lutz-Smith, 24, who is Chris' step-daughter.

When I ask Chris to describe Eve, who passed away at the age of 49, he smiles. He said: "She was a very sociable person, bright and likeable – everybody loved Eve. She was devoted to her work and was very principled."

Eve was born in Iowa, in the US, and moved to Manchester to complete her PhD.

She moved to St Andrews before establishing herself in Edinburgh at the Medical Research Council Brain Metabolism Unit where she met Chris, 46, a research biochemist who has since retrained as a podiatrist.

Chris said: "Eve got ill in April of 2010 and continued working for most of that time.

"She had cervical cancer, a clear cell carcinoma which was kind of rare at her age.

"So while the statistics are better than you would think, it was unfortunate that she had the rare type which was aggressive.

"She went into the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in June 2011 and was at the hospice by early August. She died on August 20.

"It was much more rapid that you'd normally expect. She was a microbiologist, she knew all about the physiology and the ins and outs of it.

"She read all the scientific literature and she wasn't deluded as to what her chances were. I don't know if that's good or bad."

He says while he knew hospices existed, he didn't really know what they could provide.

Chris added: "And I didn't really want to think about it. Nobody wants to think in advance about the terminal phase.

"Yet there are such specific skills that are required that are so different to other places that are trying to cure the cancer.

"It's wonderful to have that support because their experience means they can pre-empt the problems and they are so pro-active in coming to you, because they know the kind of support you are going to need before you know it yourself."

Staff sought out the couple's opinions on how things should go: what did Eve want, what did Chris want?

He said: "It left me with the feeling that she was getting the best care she could get, which I was really grateful for.

"It made all our lives so much easier because, of course, you're not just dealing with the person who is dying, you're dealing with the family, and the hospice was really invested in our futures."

The hospice offers counselling for families which Chris says was hugely beneficial.

He said: "I sometimes wonder what it would have been like without that, because I know it helped me, it helped me so much and – a typical west of Scotland male – I was very cynical.

GRIEF is different for everybody but there are lots of common elements and they can really help you with these problems.

"All kinds of emotions come out in the aftermath. And of course, there's just having the experience of someone to talk to, who isn't emotionally tied into the situation.

"Your friends want to help, your family wants to help but you can't truly open up because you are always trying to protect somebody."

Eve had one of the hospice's single rooms.

Of the 14 beds in the Carlton Place hospice, four are private rooms but in the new-build every patient will have a room to themselves that can be opened on to a social area if they prefer, along with access to their own garden.

Chris said: "Eve was so ill so if she'd been in a room with other beds then it would have been quite different – more restricted and more inhibited.

"I thought it was amazing that she got a single room, which was really good for her. She liked to socialise but she was private as well.

"She would look out the window to the bridge and she really enjoyed that.

"I feel really grateful for the care she had here and that she had that private room, she had that view, it made a huge difference to her final time. I know she was made as comfortable as she could be."

Chris is impressed with the plans for the new hospice and says being able to open up to a garden area is "fantastic".

He said: "You can just imagine being able to have the fresh air coming in and just step right out into it, I think that's really perfect.

"I know Eve would have loved that. She had that view of the river which made a difference but being able to go on to the grass is hugely important.

"There are the individual rooms but social areas if patients want to socialise. They can be as private or as public as they want to be, which is an ideal mix."

Eve was laid to rest in Applecross in Wester Ross, an area that was important to her.

Chris said: "She loved it up there – her Scottish roots were important to her."