Why now?

How I knew it was time to start sharing more of my story

I have been sharing my experience of losing my husband since I made a return to Instagram a couple of weeks after he died. It was tentative at first. I had never made his illness public, out of respect for his strong sense of privacy, so I treaded carefully as I started being open online about what was happening. But, post by post, creating and sharing helped me process my own feelings, and the responses of others who told me I was helping them were further encouragement to put one foot in front of the other. As the pandemic hit, the online world became even more of a lifeline, and I continued to share, marking first anniversaries along the way.

But then… things got a little murky. While I was still receiving encouragement and thanks, and even suggestions that I should write a book about grief, there was little I felt up to telling the world. There were things I couldn’t share – a relationship I didn’t want to reflect on publicly, my struggles in a job that filled me with anxiety – but most of all I lacked clarity about my own feelings. I continued to talk about grief, loss and loneliness, and about plans for the future, but any ideas of longer form writing I may have toyed with had to be shelved until further notice.

It’s now been three years since my husband died. The number means nothing. There is no rule book, and even if there was, the pandemic played havoc with any expectations. But, for me, it has coincided with a time of transformation, and of renewed clarity.

I was dreading the summer. He died in July, and from late May my internal calendar marks every anniversary: his last day at home, his last day in the hospital, the day I was told just how little time he had left… The first summer was exhausting, like living a parallel existence of remembrance alongside my dreary lockdown life. The second year might have been easier, if I hadn’t been going through a break-up at the same time. So this third summer was looming, with its palimpsest of loss and trauma.

I decided not to take a holiday. My house is my safe haven, and my daily routines of walking and ballet keep me grounded. I needed them unchanged. Instead I focused on work. Just as I survived the early days of grief by throwing myself into photography and writing, I would make this a creative summer, making a new stationery collection ready for launch in September. And I would take it one day at a time.

It worked. The anniversary passed, with sadness and anxiety, and that weight and sense that the world just isn’t right. And as summer continued to unfold, my feelings came loose, the ties untangling themselves. The shadow of that other relationship finally receded, and stopped taking up the space it had never deserved. It had always felt more important, and the break-up more shattering, because of grief, and they had in turn coloured everything else. Clearing my mind and heart of it made everything else clearer – and calmer.

Grief has felt sharper since, and I’m grateful for it. It is and should be part of my life. I want to feel the sadness and nostalgia. And I want to feel all the joy and love, not just past, but present and future too. So now is the right time to sit, write, and share my story.