 It’s eight years tomorrow since Tim died suddenly and unexpectedly. The anniversary hits me differently every year. The first year it was raw, and in the run up I really didn’t think I could survive the day. The fourth year, a few days before the anniversary, my friend Claire died and her husband John joined this club that none of us want to be in. And that brought all the rawness of early grief back. Five years on and grief was now a quiet companion rather than a bleeding wound, and I had married a wonderful woman called Dee who understood widowhood. I still missed Tim but I had learned that I could love two people, and that neither love diminishes the other.
Each year, the run up is harder than the day itself. And then the actual day comes oddly as a relief. Perhaps the pressure is off. In the early years, the anticipation began on my birthday, which was also our wedding anniversary, in September. It continued through his birthday in December, into Christmas and New Year and then on to his death in February. In the latter years, it has just been February. Last year, I had been unsettled all month – I think it’s triggered by environmental things – the changes in the weather, the emergence of the snowdrops, the feelings of ‘this time that year’, but I almost forgot in the few days before. My body didn’t, though. The night of the 23rd I was in a horrid mood. Scritchy. Irritable. Slept badly. And realised why, the next morning – that it was ‘that’ day. The run up to Tim’s anniversary has been hard this year, and it’s prompted me to look back over the last 12 months, which has had some incredible ups and some really tough downs. My first book was published in December, on Tim’s birthday (he always resented that it was on World AIDS Day), and we raised a glass to him at the launch. I have performed in York, Scarborough and Whitby, and led writing workshops, with more performances and workshops planned. I have two more books in the works. And I’m getting involved in the creativity in a local town which has brought me new friends and new opportunities. However, alongside this, my wife has been diagnosed with a serious chronic illness. This has left me screaming into the void about how unfair it is. My mental health has taken a dip, and the stress has made my ADHD worse. I have had to go back to my early coping strategies, including grounding techniques, and taking life one moment, one breath and one step at a time. I have also had to remind myself that it is okay, in fact vital, to talk and share. And to hold tight to the people who are here. Tomorrow, I will raise a glass of Jameson’s to Tim, and to the lovely times we had. Tonight, I will remember our last, lovely evening together with our friends.
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 Sending love to all of you who lost partners through cancer, today (and every day)
 One of the things I found after Tim died was how friendship groups shift. While I was so very fortunate that I didn’t lose friends (though I know that some people sadly do), I did find that my people changed. And that included unexpected people reaching out, stepping up. Being the people that I really needed.
I’ve newly come across the concept of firefighters and builders. Sometimes these can be the same people, but often they are different, and this has helped me understand. Firefighters are the people who are there immediately. They drop everything and are there in the moment of catastrophe, doing the things that need to be done, holding you together in that raw grief and pain. They may stay longer or they may drift back into the background after the worst of the crisis is over. Builders come into their own as you reconstruct your life. They are there in the dark times, and support you as you start to understand the new normal, survive the grief attacks and even begin to move forward. The builders might be there at the beginning of your grief journey, come along later, or be there throughout. As a friend pointed out after reading this post - there are also the decorators who tidy us up and make our lives more beautiful. We need both of them. And we can be both of them as we help people who have been where we are (but remember to look after yourself too).  Written for When Christmas Hurts, St Stephen’s Fylingdales, Sunday 14 December 2025.
I loved Christmas when I was a child. My dad's beautiful voice reading us The Night before Christmas on Christmas Eve. Stockings in front of the gas fire before breakfast – a Christmas annual in the top and a satsuma, nuts and shiny coins in the bottom. Church and then home, a homemade mince pie, hot ginger wine and presents. It was a good year if I got something to make, something to play with and something to read. As I grew up and got married, my parents encouraged us to build our own Christmas traditions, and these evolved over the years, but we always kept elements of those childhood Christmases. My first marriage crumbled and my dear friend Tim, the sweet, witty, gentle man I had known since we were both in our early twenties became a rock and a shoulder to cry on. Our friendship grew into love, and despite me saying I would never marry again, we got married. We moved to a beautiful and ancient house in Tideswell where Tim opened a second-hand bookshop on the ground floor that became a quiet hub of the village. We built a life new life together. Became part of an amazing group of friends. Acted together. Celebrated birthdays and weddings and Christmases and New Years together. Christmas was a special time for us. We would catch up with family beforehand, and then after sherry and homemade mince pies in the shop with friends and customers on Christmas eve morning, he shut the shop and I closed my office door. We might spend Christmas eve at the pub, or have Christmas lunch with friends, but the rest of the time it was just us. We hunkered down, ate wonderful food, played board games and watched films. And then headed away for New Year to see some of our oldest friends. Tim had type 2 diabetes. Early one February morning, a few months after his 50th birthday, and half a year shy of ten years of marriage, his heart stopped. He was gone in just a moment. In a beautiful moment of quiet and love, Gillian and Simon, the village vicars, anointed him on his way and my friend Fiona swept me into the warmth of her wonderful home. Breaking the news to his parents and to our friends and my family was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. They surrounded me with love and care. At first, I was numb, unbelieving. Hearing the door downstairs rattle in the draft and thinking it was him coming upstairs. Waking up in the night and reaching for him. Dreaming that it was all a mistake and then waking up to remember that it was real. Then the reality sank in and I understood how lonely grief could be, even surrounded by people who loved both of us. As the end of the year approached I started to get all the kind invitations from people not wanting me to be alone at Christmas. But I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything and I declined them as kindly as I could. I had a quiet lunch with friends in the village. I spent time with wonderful online friends from WAY Widowed and Young who understood. I took it gently – there were times I wanted to be with people, and times I wanted to be alone. The second Christmas I knew I needed to do something completely different. I announced it early, before anyone invited me anywhere, and I booked a shepherd's hut in the Lake District. I loaded my Kindle full of books, took a box of simple food, snacks and drinks and a sack of wood for the woodburner, and slept, walked, read, slept some more and took time to heal. Eight years on from Tim's sudden and unexpected death, I struggle with winter. It starts with his birthday on 1 December, and runs through Christmas and New Year until the anniversary of his death on 24 February. Trauma changes us. I am a different person now – not necessarily better or worse, just different. But I have found love again and built new Christmas traditions, threaded through with the old ones, in the beauty and welcome of the North Yorkshire coast. In a house full of dogs and words and art and music and the sound of the sea. There are still elements of Christmas that hurt, but it's no longer raw – it's more of a bittersweet wistfulness wrapped around many happy memories.  This is what I have been working on during 2025 - Dancing in Heaven is my first solo collection of monologues. It celebrates the strength, grief, anger, love and loss of the women who were there during the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
There will be launches in London on 1 December (World AIDS Day) and Scarborough on 6 December.  A few weeks ago I was interviewed by the wonderful Dilys Morgan for her podcast Living with Dying, about grief, widowhood and The Widows Handbook.
“Most people who are widowed will talk afterwards about how they flailed around, went numb, didn't know what they were doing or how they were feeling in the early stages of grief. And yet it's at that time when decisions have to be made, action taken. Suzanne Elvidge drew on her own experience to set up the Widows Handbook and talks about it here.” https://open.spotify.com/episode/2BDSV1po2SNOK1wgVMl1Xd  I was honoured to be part of Felix Rackow’s documentary, Grief in the Shadows, which explored the ways in which being LGBTQ+ can complicate the process of grief and bereavement. Other voices included people from Cruse Bereavement Support and Widowed and Young, as well as the Reverend Richard Coles and activist Jonathan Blake.
https://shows.acast.com/virgin-radio-pridecast/episodes/grief-in-the-shadows  I have been stepping outside of my comfort zone a fair bit lately in the creative part of my life. I went on a drama course because I’ve lost confidence on stage, and that is pushing me into improvising and devising, rather than relying on words on a page. I joined a group for writers and theatremakers and read some new work there, and I’ve been discussing how that work could perhaps become a performance piece. I’m coming towards the editing stage of a writing project, and that will go to an editor next, which is setting off my imposter syndrome.
The reason that I can do this is because I know that my comfort zone is there for me to go back to. A bit like a pet rat exploring a new room – she can step outside of her nest, because she knows that her nest is still there for her to go back to, and she will step out and run back repeatedly until she knows the whole room. This reminded me of how I felt in the early stages of grief. Tim was my comfort zone, my safe space – I described him as the centre of my turning world – and when he died suddenly it was gone in a moment. I had to rebuild my confidence and comfort zone piece by piece, and some days it felt like I would add a brick, and two bricks would fall off. Seven years on and it’s there. That awful loss means I know that nothing is guaranteed. But for the moment, I will go out, play with words, and come back to safety.  The title for this blog post comes from the eponymous podcast by the wonderful Laura McInerny (Laura’s TED Talk is the reason that, as a widow, I talk about moving forward, not moving on). Terrible, Thanks for Asking is a place where people can get honest about how they really feel.
As widows, we’re not always honest about how we feel. Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to upset the people we are talking to. Sometimes we want to protect ourselves. Sometimes we just want to get on with our day. This is your reminder that sometimes we need to be honest and be authentic, and let people know what grief actually feels like. |
AuthorI 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. Archives
February 2026
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