‘I’m walking her home’: How one man is undertaking a 5,000-mile trek from London for his late wife after a deathbed promise

When Daniel Forrester first met Caroline Sarpong on a dating app in January 2023, he had no idea their love story would change his life or that it would end with a promise that would take him on a 5,000-mile trek from London to Ghana.

After losing her fiancee to cancer, the 48-year-old from Chelmsford is preparing to embark on a global journey with her ashes to ‘take her back home’, while raising much-needed money for St Francis Hospice, where Caroline spent her final moments.

Daniel has been documenting his preparations for the massive trip on TikTok and fundraising for the equipment needed to take Caroline Home one last time via GoFundMe channel.

But speaking to the Daily Mail, Daniel rewinds the story from beginning to end and explains how he found himself traveling the world on foot for the woman he loved.

“I met Caroline on a dating app,” Daniel said. ‘I swiped right, he swiped right back at me and we started chatting immediately. Within two days he told me he was a widow and cancer-free.’

Caroline’s story stunned him. He was hospitalized in March 2021 due to excruciating stomach pain.

His intestines had ruptured, and surgeons told him that if he had arrived one minute later he would have died.

The diagnosis was devastating; colorectal cancer that has spread to his liver. Doctors gave him only six months to live.

After losing his fiancee to cancer, a 48-year-old Chelmsford man is set to embark on a global journey with his ashes in a bid to ‘bring him back home’

When Caroline told Daniel her story, she was worried he might run away. But instead his courage brought him closer. ‘I was so surprised when he told me everything,’ he says. “I hope this doesn’t take you away from me?” he asked. ‘I told him, ‘Far from it.’

Their first meeting on Liverpool Street led to drinks in Shoreditch and the couple soon became inseparable.

After six months of dates and weekend getaways, Daniel knew he had met someone extraordinary. ‘We got along really well,’ says Daniel.

But seven months later, Caroline’s regular check-ups revealed traces of cancer in her lungs.

Doctors assured me there was nothing to worry about; until July 2023, when he told her the disease was getting worse.

‘He was told he needed a revolutionary chemotherapy treatment from America,’ says Daniel.

The treatment was brutal. ‘It was supposed to be a three-month course but it took five. This made him fall sideways.’

But Caroline’s fighting spirit never wavered.

‘Despite lung cancer, he would wake up at 4am to go to the gym. He drank very little. He was just… strong.

Even when he was in pain, Daniel was saying, ‘This won’t get you anywhere.’

That Christmas, Caroline’s oncologist at the Queen’s Hospital in Romford greeted the couple with a smile.

‘He told us the cancer in Caroline’s lungs was much lower,’ Daniel recalls. ‘I thought you were going to say you were gone. Then he said: “It will never go away, Daniel.” “This impressed me a lot.”

Ever the patient Caroline brushed it off. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “‘I’ve proven them wrong before. I’ll do it again.'”

A few weeks later, during a celebratory break in Tenerife, Daniel got down on one knee and popped the question.

‘He said yes,’ he said. ‘She immediately started planning the wedding.’

Daniel proposed to Caroline in Tenerife, but she began to suffer from stomach pains during the trip.

Daniel has been documenting his preparations for the massive trip on TikTok and is fundraising for the equipment needed to get Caroline home one last time via his GoFundMe channel

But the fairy tale was short-lived. During the trip, Caroline began to suffer from severe stomach pains.

When he returned home, scans showed the cancer had returned and attacked his intestines.

Despite his pain, he refused to complain. “He just wanted to protect everyone else,” Daniel said.

In March 2024, Caroline began experiencing pain behind her eyes. Daniel noticed that she had begun to regularly pinch the bridge of her nose; Caroline attributed it to hay fever.

However, scans revealed that he had a tumor in his brain. Once again, doctors gave him six months to live. When she told Daniel he smiled. ‘ ‘They always say six months,’ he said.”

Delays in treatment have been devastating. ‘The hospital waited two months for the biopsy and another two weeks for the results,’ says Daniel. ‘By then the lung cancer had become aggressive.’

Caroline reluctantly agreed to another round of chemotherapy; The treatment he once swore he would never do again.

‘It was terrible,’ says Daniel. ‘But for the next two weeks it was alive. It was like the old Caroline was back.’

But after a short while everything changed.

While driving her daughter to work one morning, Caroline suddenly began seeing double vision.

The tumor had crushed his optic nerve and left him blind. “He said to me, ‘I can handle anything, but I won’t lose my eyesight,'” Daniel recalls, his voice cracking.

‘It was the only time I ever saw him truly defeated.’

Radiotherapy helped a little, but by the spring he had lost 20 kilos and was emaciated.

The couple set up a bed downstairs because they could no longer go up to the next floor. On 4 November she told Daniel she wanted to go to St Francis Hospice in Romford “for symptom management only”.

“When I took him out of the house, he looked back as if he was saying goodbye,” she says softly.

‘I told her, ‘Don’t worry, baby, we’ll be home for the weekend.’ ‘He put his hand on my shoulder and didn’t say a word.’

In March 2024, Caroline began experiencing pain behind her eyes. Daniel noticed that she had begun to regularly pinch the bridge of her nose; Caroline attributed it to hay fever.

On November 6, 2025, the anniversary of Caroline’s last hospital admission, she will begin a 3,073-mile journey on foot from Saint Francis Hospice in Romford to Kumasi, Ghana.

Caroline died aged 45 on November 11, 2024, five days after arriving at the hospice.

Three weeks before her death, Caroline made one final request: that some of her ashes be scattered in Ghana, the country where she grew up.

‘Before he died, I think it was a Friday night, I told him I wanted to take his ashes to Ghana for him. But I said I want to do that by taking you to Ghana to raise some money for charity and he says “can you do that for me?” he said. And I said of course I would, baby.’

Now, almost a year later, Daniel is preparing to fulfill that promise.

On November 6, 2025, the anniversary of Caroline’s last hospital admission, she will begin a 3,073-mile journey on foot from Saint Francis Hospice in Romford to Kumasi, Ghana.

The route will take him through France, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast and finally to Ghana, a ‘dangerous’ journey expected to last months.

But Daniel has no reservations.

‘The hard thing is, Caroline and I haven’t even been together for two years. However he was by far the most influential and important person in my life. I am hungrya completely different person.

‘He showed me a lot; ‘Not only is she capable of loving, but if you were around Caroline she would do anything for you.’

Daniel scattered some of Caroline’s ashes on the small bench where they had once sat in Folkestone, overlooking France.

“I guess there are reasons for that,” Daniel said.