Fiona

In early 2014, my 39-year-old husband died suddenly. Without warning or consent, at 37 years old, I was a widowed single mother of 6 year old twins. The world seemed pretty bleak. I had been with my husband since I was 22. We had literally grown up together, and I had expected to walk with him into old age. Instead I was facing a completely different future to the one I had imagined. Four days after he died would have been our 12th wedding anniversary, a date I expected to celebrate with him on a trip interstate. Instead I was trying to comprehend how from one day to the next this person that had been my world was now gone.

That first year was spent literally trying to relearn how to live myself whilst trying to hold it together for the kids. Parenting is hard. Parenting without a partner whilst trying to navigate both your own grief and your children's is even harder. Watching my kids at school events like sports day or at the fathers day stall, or on their birthday or their fathers birthday, was like reliving the loss all over. In their eyes I could see reflected back my own confusion. I felt like I had lost control of my life and that the path I had been following had suddenly dropped out from under me.

I can only really see this now... at the time I thought I was coping ok. I was getting the kids off to school every day, going to work myself, learning how to manage my husbands business and dealing with the bills and paperwork that used to be his domain. Surely being able to manage that stuff meant I was doing fine right? But the truth is I don't think I was particularly conscious that year. Now I call it my pin the tail on the donkey year, in which I was spinning and just blindly hoping that Id land in the right spot. Now I know I was only just treading water, and it was really only because of my kids that I was able to force myself not to just swim down. Many a time, especially during the long quiet nights, it felt like it might be just easier to give up. And then morning would come and the kids would wake and I knew I had to put on my brave face and get the day started. 

On New Years Eve 2015, so almost a year after my husbands death, I started thinking about regrets. I was thinking about what my husband had missed out on, and what, if he could talk, he would say he wished he had been able to do or achieve if he had only had the time.

My husband was a hard worker, and I was proud of this work ethic and what we had built together. I don't like laziness, so I never really begrudged him the time he spent on his work. But looking back I wondered what all those nights with him working at the computer and me falling asleep on the couch now represented, and I realized they represented a missed opportunity. One that we would now never get to rectify. And so I made a conscious decision that I needed to change up my life. To make sure that I spent the most previous gift I have ever been given - the gift of time - wisely.

“I looked up from the depths of my heart where I had been hiding for the past year, and looked out onto what the world could now offer me. ”

I looked up from the depths of my heart where I had been hiding for the past year, and looked out onto what the world could now offer me. I started to run, and I found that the positive effects of the endorphins would last the whole day. I changed jobs, in part to create a better balance for myself and my kids but also to follow a dream that I had talked about for years but was always previously too scared to even properly consider. I decided to try a whole bunch of new things, things way outside my comfort zone, like yoga and meeting people from completely different social circles and tree surfing. I found with each new experience I could recognize that whilst my life might be completely different now, different isn't always bad.

I also started to take a moment each day  to look up. Not to try and see my husband in the sky... but rather to stop for a moment each day to truly appreciate the compelling beauty in the ordinary every day things that are all around it. The very tops of trees when usually all we see is the branches at eye level, or the way the sun hits the angular side of a skyscraper and softens it somehow. Or even just a beautiful pink clouded sunset. Really seeing these things made me feel a sense of calm, a sense of gratitude for all that is still in my life. And along the way, somehow I found that the fog lifted. I still think of my husband every day, sometimes every hour. And there are days and weeks of the year which feel overwhelming. I don't try and run away from them because I know that is impossible. But I now know what I need to do to get through those tough moments.

Grief is a truly individual experience and what has worked for me may very well not work for others. But the best piece of advice I could give would be to give yourself both the time to mourn and the permission at some point, whatever point is right for you, to look up and see what is in your future. I also find documenting the good things in my life - whether that be through taking photos or writing or even just telling a friend that Ive had a good day - can reinforce for me the messages of positivity. Telling my brain that there is light in the world around me somehow makes it true.