The Widow's Handbook: winner of the Helen Bailey Award 2022
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​Widow's brain is real

25/2/2022

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Straight after Tim died, my head was full of fog. I felt disconnected from the world. And I think this was my brain protecting me from the awfulness of what had just happened. While the disconnection went away, the brain fog – known as widow brain or grief brain – stayed.

​It's a feeling that you can't think straight, and with it comes short term memory loss, numbness, lack of ability to process information or instructions, tiredness and lack of focus. It can also leave your temper out of kilter - I snapped at people and got very angry at myslef. But be reassured – it's normal. Our brains are acting to protect us from the trauma.

Widow brain, for many people, lifts in the first year to 18 months, but it lasts for different lengths of time for different people, and stress or milestones can make it worse. For people who have been caring for someone for a long time, part of widow brain may be a loss of purpose. Grief can also mean not eating properly, not exercising, or not sleeping well, and this all feeds into widow brain.

The science bit
Emotional traumas affect how our brains work. Imaging the brain shows that mental and physical pain trigger the same areas of the brain. While it's nothing like the same level of trauma, a brain imaging study in people who have recently split up with their partners shows that it affects their executive function, the system in the brain that sits in the prefrontal cortex and supports your ability to understand, decide, recall, memorise and have self-control. Your prefrontal cortex gets overloaded by grief and makes it harder to function well.

The practical bit
Rest
Grief has made me the most tired I have ever been. So tired my bones hurt. Rest your mind and your body when you can.

Tell people
Explain to people what's going on in your head, and send them this blog post if they don't get it.

Decisions
A really useful piece of advice for me was not to make any major decisions for the first year.

To do lists and notes
Write things down. To do lists are useful, and have stopped me forgetting to do many, many things (the combination of widow brain and ADHD really doesn't help my memory!) Break tasks down into the smallest bits possible – rather than having a to do for 'put everything into my name', break it into house insurance, deeds, rent' etc. That way tasks are less daunting, and crossing off each small thing make it feel like an achievement.
  • Whiteboards and marker pens
  • Paper and pen
  • Sticky notes – virtual or physical
  • Bullet journals – some people swear by these, but I would have found them far too complicated in the early days of grief

Reminders
Digital reminders rule my life. I use smartphone alarms to remind me to do things that are daily or weekly. I put appointments with reminders on my digital calendar for everything from whether it's bin day or recycling day, through birthdays, to work deadlines and days out, and I can access this on both my phone and my computer.
Physical reminders can also be helpful. If you need to remember to take something with you when you go out, put it on the doormat, or leave a sticky note on the front door (I get through a lot of sticky notes).

Out-sourcing
Have a pad of sticky notes and a pen somewhere convenient. When you think of something that needs doing, write it on the sticky note and put it on the wall. When someone says 'what can I do', give them a sticky note.

Stilling the whirling thoughts
Grounding can help to still your brain when everything is churning around and destroying your ability to focus.
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Self-care
Be kind to yourself and forgive yourself. Remember – you are only human. You've been through a lot. And you are grieving. It's not your fault your head is like this. In the end, things getting missed or forgotten are very rarely the end of the world. 

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That day

24/2/2022

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You walk out of the house/hospice/hospital, and close the door behind you. You know that your life is never going to be the same again. Your brain is full and spinning. Part of you doesn't believe that it's real, and part knows that you will carry this loss for ever. People are around you loving you, caring for you, but you feel numb, distant, separate. You want to be alone with your thoughts but you need to be surrounded by people. The world carries on as if nothing has happened but for you it has stopped. ​

Tim Dudley 1 December 1967 to 24 February 2018
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Team Tidza 2022: Celebrating our friend Claire McKenzie

23/2/2022

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As I said in an earlier post, once we have lost someone close, subsequent losses can bring things back up to the surface. This week I lost a friend, the wonderful Claire McKenzie, and her husband John has joined the club that none of us want to be in. Claire was an amazing support to me after Tim died.

I and a group of friends will be raising money for Ashgate Hospice, her home for the last week of her life. I'm going to (virtually) row the channel and back. Carrie, who set up the fundraiser, is walking 150 miles in 28 days, the equivalent distance from Tideswell to her old workplace in Soho. That's an average of just over five miles a day - come rain, hail or snow. Fi, Alice, Ged, Peter and Beth will all be taking part in Ashgate's High Peak Trail walk. There will be more challenges through the year.

​If reading The Widow's Handbook has struck a chord with you, and if you can, please consider donating to Team Tidza 2022: Celebrating our friend Claire McKenzie.

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Guilt and regret

22/2/2022

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Tim died suddenly in the early hours of the morning. His heart just stopped. He had type 2 diabetes that he perhaps didn't manage as well as he should, and he had been feeling tired. But he was a bookseller, and we were in the process of moving his enormous stock of books from one storage unit to another.

​I asked him if he was having chest pain, and he said no. So, I brushed it off as simple weariness. A banana box of books weighs a lot, after all.

After he died, and the post-mortem revealed heart failure related to type 2 diabetes, I was wracked with guilt. What could I have done? Monitored his diet more closely? Watched him take his tablets three times a day? Insisted he went onto insulin? Got the truth out of him about how he was actually feeling? If he'd died in an accident, I suspect I would have felt guilty for not giving him a lift that day, or persuading him to get the bus, or agreeing that he should cycle.

That's one kind of guilt after someone dies. There's also the guilt of feeling that you didn't say what you should have, or said what you shouldn't have. Did I tell him I loved him the night before? Did we work too much and not spend enough time together? What if our last night out had been a terrible one (rather than the wonderful evening it was), or if I'd persuaded him that we shouldn't go? How would I feel if we'd had an argument? This kind of guilt may become more complicated if you had a difficult relationship with the person who died.

As survivors, we can often feel guilty that we are alive, and our partner is dead. This is particularly intense for people surviving an incident where their partner died. Survivor guilt can also be a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – talk to your doctor or a psychotherapist if you think you might have PTSD.

In grief, I became full of 'I should have…' 'I could have…' 'I would have…' But feeling guilty doesn't mean that we are guilty – it's us trying to put order into the chaos that grief is. If we can blame someone, especially ourselves, we can think we get back control.
 
What can we do?
  • Accept that feeling guilty is totally normal
  • Unpack your guilt – is it rational or irrational?
    • If it's irrational, tell yourself this – we can only act based on the information and experience that we have at the time. Consider – could you really have done anything more?
    • If it's rational, is there some way that you feel you could make symbolic amends? Perhaps learning new skills or volunteering. And then actively work to forgive yourself
  • Talk to people about it – family, friends, fellow widows, a counsellor, or a psychotherapist
  • Use grounding techniques if you feel yourself getting into a guilt spiral
  • Think about the positive things you did with your partner, and remember the things that you did do right, not the things that you felt went wrong

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Models of grief: Continuing bonds

17/2/2022

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I'm not sure about my thoughts on an afterlife, but a few days ago I saw a post about Storm Dudley.
Buxton Weather Watch @buxtonweatherw
Hi all. A very active few days of weather ahead with both storm Dudley and storm Eunice producing disruptive winds.
Storm Dudley arrives today with winds strengthening to 50mph during the afternoon, to around 60mph by 6pm, this lasting through much of tonight and into Thursday. Showers at times during this period however no disruptive rain. Additional care needed if travel over higher routes is planned. However, not expecting storm Dudley itself to produce any major disruption
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Just after Tim (Dudley) died, the Beast from the East hit. Tim loved snow, and would call me from downstairs in the shop to say "Snowing!" whenever a few flakes started. I left my village to head south before the roads closed, and just managed to get back a few days later, after being pampered and cosseted by my sister. I remember vividly standing in snowdrifts and looking up at the sky, saying, "Darling, I know God has put you in charge of the weather, and you're having fun, but that's enough." The snow even delayed his post-mortem. 

​The post from Buxton Weather Watch reminded me about this, and I messaged to some friends: "Tim is making himself known around his anniversary. I told God he shouldn't have put him in charge of the weather." These are my continuing bonds with Tim.

​The continuing bonds model
Many models of grief are linear, and go through a range of steps, ending up with acceptance and a new life. While models like the pinball machine and growing around grief do accept that it's more complicated than that, the idea of continuing bonds reflects that we don't just take our grief with us, we take the people that we have lost with us too. It accepts that staying connected with the people we love is normal.
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The idea of continuing bonds comes from the book 'Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief', edited by Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman, all experts in grief. Instead of focusing on letting go, continuing bonds talks about building a new relationship with the people that we have lost. This relationship we will take with us for always.
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Continuing bonds with our late partners include:
  • Talking about them – to people who remember them, and to new people
  • Creating a memorial – a headstone, a plaque, a tree, a bench, a casket or urn for their ashes
  • Talking to them, perhaps while visiting their grave or where their ashes are scattered, or looking at their picture or where their ashes are stored
  • Writing to them, texting them, messaging them
  • Eating the foods they loved
  • Asking their advice – I still ask my dad what to do when I'm doing DIY
  • Having something to remember them by – a ring, a lock of hair, a picture, something they wore
  • Wearing their clothes
  • Keeping their photos around
  • Visiting places that they loved – or taking a trip they always wanted to take
  • Having their ashes made into jewellery
  • Carrying on a hobby or interest you shared with them
  • Finishing something they started
  • Feeling their presence – a robin, a feather, a sound
  • Having a tattoo, perhaps in their handwriting
  • Having rituals for a special day – leave a chair empty, raise a glass, go somewhere special. Friends and I raise a glass of Jameson's on the anniversary of Tim's death
  • Fundraising for a special cause

Continuing bonds is a normal part of grief. However, if you feel stuck in grief, or trapped in the connections you have with your loved one, you may have developed what's called complicated grief disorder. This includes exaggerated grief symptoms over a long period, sometimes years or decades. If you feel you have this, it's worth talking to your GP, a counsellor, or a psychotherapist. 

'Grief is a chasm' image shared with permission from Nansy Ferrett-Paine of Monster-Nip Art
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Grief is a chasm

16/2/2022

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'Grief is a chasm' image shared with permission from Nansy Ferrett-Paine of Monster-Nip Art
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​Secondary losses

11/2/2022

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The death of a spouse or partner is different than other losses, in the sense that it literally changes every single thing in your world going forward. When your spouse dies, the way you eat changes. The way you watch TV changes. Your friend circle changes or disappears entirely. Your family dynamic/life changes or disappears entirely. Your financial status changes. Your job situation changes. It effects your self-worth. Your self-esteem. Your confidence. Your rhythms. The way you breathe. Your mentality. Your brain function. (Ever heard the term 'widow brain'? If you don't know what that is, count yourself as very lucky.) Your physical body. Your hobbies and interests. Your sense of security. Your sense of humor. Your sense of womanhood or manhood. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. CHANGES. You are handed a new life that you never asked for and that you don't particularly want. It is the hardest, most gut-wrenching, horrific, life-altering of things to live with. Kelley Lynn
Losing our partner is one of the most shattering losses we can go through. But alongside that are all the secondary losses, many of which are unexpected
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One of the first things I was told about being widowed is that we lose our past, our present and our future. That hadn't even occurred to me. I just thought of what I had lost in the 'now', and the grief and pain that was overwhelming. I then started to find out about the extra losses. I was fortunate in that I had the house, that I could manage on my salary, and that my business was mine, not ours. But some people have to leave the house they shared because they can't afford the rent or mortgage alone, or because they weren't married and it goes to their partner's family.

Some widows lose their jobs because they are not able to return to work through grief, or they worked in their partner's business and are unable to run it alone. These issues may also mean that they have to move away from the area, losing their network of friends and/or family, and their feeling of being part of a community. Bereavement can lead to a loss of faith or belief, and this in turn leads to a loss of a community. Some people lose family, and friends too, because they can't cope with grief, or because of rifts over the cause of death or over money.

Losing the role of caregiver can lead to a loss of purpose and feeling that a role is gone. On the flip side, the lost partner may have been the caregiver, leaving the widow both alone and without practical or emotional support.

Tim had a phenomenal memory, and though we were only together around a decade, we had known each other since our early twenties. So I have lost so many memories, so much shared language and all our shared stories. I also lost our shared future. All those things we planned to do together. I chose not to have children. But for many widows, losing a partner loses the cherished dream of children together.

We lose our emotional supporter, our biggest cheerleader when we lose a partner. But for some widows this is made harder by discovering difficult things after their death, which will be forever unresolved.
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Dealing with secondary loss is hard, as they often emerge just as we are starting to come to terms with our initial loss and regain our routines. For me, it was a case of going back to my early coping strategies of one breath, one step and one moment at a time, and accepting that I was forever changed by my loss. I also had to understand that these secondary losses were real – just as real as the primary loss. Secondary losses still appear, even four years on. And I catch my breath, and grieve again.
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Cost of living tips: Saving money and energy

10/2/2022

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The cost of living is climbing, and that puts a squeeze on all of us. ​Here are some hints and tips that might help a little, and some of them will help the planet too.

People who are widowed don't just lose their partner – they lose their partner's income, and may lose access to their partner's pension and their home. These are part of the secondary losses. Money is the last thing we want to have to worry about while we are grieving.


Benefits and grants
Make sure that you are claiming all the benefits that you are due. The Citizens Advice Bureau can help. For new widows, there are some specific benefits, including the funeral expenses payment and the bereavement support payment. The support payment is currently only due to husbands, wives and civil partners, but this is set to change in 2022.
  • See if you are eligible for the Warm Home Discount Scheme
  • There are grants available to help pay off emnergy debts

Heating, lighting and hot water
  • Set your central heating timer from only when you need it
  • Turn the radiators down in rooms that are not used – leave it on a frost protect setting if you have one. If you have a heating system like Hive and individual radiator thermostats you can heat the house in zones. Watch out for rooms getting damp – a bit extra heat now and then will help
  • Turn the central heating thermostat down by a degree or two
  • Don't block radiators with furniture
  • Have blankets or an electric throw on the sofa for chilly evenings – and if you are reading a book, bed can be warmer!
  • Hot water bottles are brilliant - just don't use it with an electric blaket, as water and electricity don't mix well)
  • Putting a blanket or thin duvet under your bottom sheet can make the bed warmer
  • Turn down the hot water temperature on the boiler
  • Have a shower rather than a bath, and keep it short
  • Wear jumpers, fleeces or hoodies – and wear a vest!
  • Turn lights off as you leave a room
  • Replace light bulbs with low energy LEDs
  • Have draught excluders at doors, and keep doors closed
  • Stop heat escaping up the chimney with card, crumpled newspaper or a Chimney Sheep (the benefit of a Chimney Sheep is that it allows enough air to prevent condensation in your room, and is biodegradable)
  • Close curtains and blinds at night and in rooms you are not using – thermal ones will keep in extra heat
  • Secondary double glazing, for example self-adhesive window film, stops the loss of heat through windows
  • Have hot drinks regularly (and put any extra hot water into a flask to keep warm fro your next hot drink, or your hot water bottle) and have at least one hot meal a day to help you to keep warm
  • Don't bath or shower every day, have an old-fashioned flannel wash
  • Water meters can save money for people living alone
  • There are grants and benefits to help with energy bills

Broadband, phone and TV
  • Check with your suppliers to make sure that you are on the right deal
  • Cancel any app, magazine or digital subscriptions that you don't use
  • Consider swapping between different streaming services every few months, so binge on Netflix now, and then swap to Amazon for a while
  • Look for cheaper alternatives to any subscriptions – read magazines in the library, switch from Sky to FreeSat, switch music service
  • Share streaming services with a friend
  • If you own your own mobile phone, go sim-only
  • Haggle – sometimes threatening to leave gets your phone or streaming contract costs down

Food shopping
  • Make a list and have a budget, and stick to it
  • Look out for deals – if you use a particular kind of coffee or laundry liquid, stock up while it's on offer, but don't get caught up and buy more than you need, or buy things you don't need
  • What looks like a good deal isn't always - keep an eye on the unit or per 100g cost
  • Buy wonky fruit and veg from supermarkets, or buy from market stalls
  • Frozen and tinned fruit and veg is just as nutritious as fresh, and can be cheaper and involve less waste
  • Try shopping local (if you can) - buying directly from markets, and using local shops can actually save money
  • Buy own brands, and consider shifting down from premium own brands to basic/value own brands
  • Check different aisles - things like rice may be cheaper in the 'world foods' aisle
  • Look at higher and lower shelves - some supermarkets put less-profitable items on top and bottom shelves, with the ones they want you to buy on the moddle shelves
  • Shop around
  • Avoid convenience stores when you can
  • Use a discount supermarket like Lidl or Aldi (but don't get tempted by the middle aisle!)
  • Fill your freezer with the food in the reduced section - often stocked up in the evening
  • Shop for food online to reduce impulse buys – look out for the cheaper delivery slots
  • Don't shop on an empty stomach!
  • Join a loyalty scheme - you can be loyal to as many supermarkets as you like!
  • Join a food pantry like Wigan's Fur Clemt, a membership scheme where you pay a low membership fee and then can buy a certain amount of food items a week. These aren't food banks, and are open to everyone. The pantry is stocked with surplus food from across the food industry, so reduces waste
  • If you are struggling to pay for food, get a referral to a food bank

Cooking
  • Reduce food waste:
    • plan meals and buy only what you need
    • cook the right amounts and don't serve bigger portions than necessary 
    • store food correctly, including fruit and veg
    • use apps like OLIO or TooGoodToGo
    • freeze bread if you don't think you are going to use it all – you can toast from frozen
    • if food in the fridge is getting close to the use by date, freeze it – even milk and cheese will freeze (and ignore best before labels)
  • Don't throw leftovers away, make them into something else the next day. Soupmakers are brilliant for using up leftovers, and all those slightly bendy carrots in the bottom of the fridge
    • The Waste Not series has a range of recipes with left overs, including banana skins and left over chips
  • Cook in bulk in a slow cooker and freeze - if you are a meat eater, this also allows you to use cheaper cuts of meat
  • Have a look at Jack Monroe's Cooking on a Bootstrap website - it's full of simple and low-cost recipes

Transport
  • Walk or cycle rather than drive if you can
  • Look for cheaper rail tickets
  • Travel by coach rather than train
  • If you don't commute every day, look into flexible season tickets
  • Join a car sharing scheme like Liftshare, or rent a car when you need it rather than owning one
  • Consider hypermiling - using driving techniques designed to save fuel

Shopping
  • Give away and get stuff for free on Freegle or OLIO
  • Buy clothes from charity shops
  • Mend old clothes instead of buying new ones
  • Shop at police auctions
  • Join your local library rather than buy books, swap books with people, download books (only use legitimate sights, please), borrow virtually, and support second-hand and independent bookshops
  • Get free books on Kindle
  • Use discount shops, like B&M or Savers
  • Get everything out of packaging – cut the top off hand cream and toothpaste tubes and scrape out all the bits, rinse out detergent and shampoo bottles, poor hot water into Marmite jars and use it as stock
  • Use buy and sell sites (or set one up)
  • Repair broken things rather than throwing them out – look out for local repair cafes
  • If you shop on Amazon, have a look at Amazon Warehouse – these are refurbished items or items that have been returned
  • Look at the big-name shops on eBay for refurbished items – and link eBay to Nectar for points that you can turn into vouchers
  • Look for cashback sites, or use a cashback credit card and pay it off each month
  • Look at subscription options on Amazon for things you buy regularly
  • Hunt out deals, vouchers and promo codes

Keeping fit
  • Are you using your gym subscription? If not, cancel it, switch to a cheaper one (you might be able to get a discount on membership if you are on benefits) or a pay-as-you-go or no-contract gym, use a free outdoor gym or Green Gym, look for free gym passes and free trials, exercise at home using YouTube videos, do a Couch to 5k, or join Parkrun
  • Shower at the gym rather than come home and shower

Budgeting, saving and borrowing
  • Have a budget, and if you can, make your seven-day budget stretch to eight days - this gives you a little bit of wiggle room
  • If you have savings, see if you can get a better interest rate - look at platforms like Active Savings, Raisin UK or Cash Savings Hub
  • Credit unions are financial co-operatives that are owned and controlled by their members, and can offer better interest rates on savings and loans
  • See if you can transfer credit card debt to save money
  • Check through your bank statement and see if there are any forgotten subscriptions or services that you can cancel

Other
  • Switch things off at the wall rather than leaving on standby, and unplug chargers
  • Air clothes that have been worn once rather than washing them. Only wash clothes when they really are dirty
  • Run the washing machine at a lower temperature, and make sure that it is full
  • Only run the dishwasher when it is full
  • Dry washing on the line or use a heated dryer rather than turning on the tumble drier
  • Cut and dye your own hair
  • Sell things you don't need on sites like eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Nextdoor
  • Don't be loyal to loyalty card schemes – get what points you can where you can and turn them into vouchers
  • Stop smoking or stop/cut down on drinking – it'll be better for your health, too
  • If you have more than three prescribed items in three months or 11 in a year, get a prescription prepayment certificate

Other resources
Citizens Advice: If you are struggling with living costs
Martin Lewis' MoneySavingExpert website, including Tips, Tricks and Treats
StepChange, a debt charity
Money Advice Trust


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All of the firsts

6/2/2022

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"The pain of grief never really goes away. You just learn to wear it. But it's so raw for so long. And the awful year of firsts. And not being able to move things because they were the last person to touch it. And the more things that you move, the fewer things you have that they've touched last, and you feel like you're inadvertently erasing them. Hoping their clothes will retain their smell but they don't. Grief is so so complicated."

The time after they die is so full of firsts. That first time you go to bed and there's an empty space next to you. The first time you wake up in a world where they are no longer. The first time you do a load of washing that only contains your own clothes. The first meal for one. The first time that you change the bedding, and the bed no longer smells of them. The first shop that doesn't contain that little extra something that you always picked up.

Moving past the milestones
The milestone dates – your birthday, their birthday, Christmas – are tough. These are things that should be full of joy, but instead they trigger memories of what we have lost, and they remind us that our people aren't here. There are also the anniversaries of their diagnosis, admission to hospital and death.

When I came up to the day before the first anniversary of his death, I honestly didn't know how I was going to get through the next 24 hours. A friend from Widowed and Young told me that I had survived the day of his death, and that no anniversary could ever be worse than that. That helped me a lot.

For me, the first New Year was tough. This was partly because we had been going to the same New Year's Eve party, dating back to years before we were married. But most of all, it was because it heralded a year that Tim would never see.

The firsts don't necessarily end after a year. There will be others – the first wedding, the first time a friend or relative has a baby, the first death of someone close.

In my experience, the run up to the milestones are worse than the days themselves. For me, the length of day, the temperature, the weather, the emerging of the snowdrops, all remind me of the time of year and the anniversary of his death. People reminisce about the Beast from the East, and that was around the time he died. The milestone day dawns with a small sense of relief.
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Coping with the firsts
  • be aware that these days can be tough
  • Plan things to do on milestone days, either alone or with people. Treat yourself. But allow yourself to cancel at the last minute if that feels the right thing to do.
  • Create a ritual – light a candle, put flowers somewhere significant, visit the grave, eat their favourite food, make a donation to a special charity. Remember that this ritual is for you, though – if it becomes a burden, don't do it.
  • Talk about them to the people who loved them.
  • Do something creative – write your thoughts down. Draw or paint something. It doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be shown to anyone, it's just for you.
  • Plant something, perhaps something that flowers or fruits at the time of year you are remembering.
  • Use grounding techniques, to root yourself in the now, rather than 'then'
  • Sit in the sadness – sometimes we need to accept that we are sad, that we miss them, that there is a hole in our lives without them.
  • Celebrate if you want to. Or have a really good cry. Sob. Wail. Howl. Or do both. It's all okay.

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​Models of grief: The balance scales

4/2/2022

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When we are first bereaved, it can feel like a set of old-fashioned scales with all the weight down on one side. 

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As time goes by, we add things to the other side. The weight of our grief doesn't get any less, but we get a new balance as our life gets bigger (see also Growing around grief).

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    Author

    I was widowed at 50 when Tim, who I expected would be my happy-ever-after following a marriage break-up, died suddenly from heart failure linked to his type 2 diabetes. Though we'd known each other since our early 20s, we'd been married less than ten years. ​

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