​Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of Tim’s sudden and unexpected death. For each milestone date I’ve found the run up to be much harder than the day itself, and I expect this year to be the same. What has changed is the length of the run-up.
 
In the first few years it began on my birthday, which was also our wedding anniversary, in September. It continued through his birthday in December, Christmas, New Year and then to his death in February. Now, I can raise a glass and remember him on those dates, and the run up period doesn’t begin for me until February. In the early days of grief, it surrounds us, and its rawness is part of our every waking moment. Over time, in my experience, grief softens and becomes less raw, and while it remains the same size and stays with us always, our lives grow around it. 

Valentine’s Day is coming up. As a day focused on romantic love, it’s a tough one for many widows, and like all milestones, the first can be the hardest. Also, like other milestones, the run up to it may be harder than the day itself
 
What to do on the day

• Celebrate your partner and their love
• Accept that it might be a day of grief attacks
• Buy yourself chocolates and flowers, and get some for friends and family
• Take it as a day to be kind to yourself
• Take time out for self-care
• Treat yourself to a takeaway

 
Some online marketing companies offer the opportunity to opt out from Valentine’s Day messaging (this can also be an opportunity to unsubscribe from all the marketing emails that are cluttering your inbox).
 
And if it helps – Valentine’s Day has a pretty dark origin story.
 
Alternatives to Valentine’s Day

• Black Day – a South Korean holiday where you eat jjajangmyeon (짜장면, noodles with black bean sauce)
• Ystävänpäivä or Friendship Day – a Finnish day to celebrate friendships
• International Quirkyalone Day – a day to celebrate platonic, familial and self-love
• Galentine’s Day (13 February)– a day to celebrate female friends (thanks to the sitcom Parks and Recreation)
• Palentine’s Day (also 13 February) – a day to celebrate platonic love, that includes male and non-binary friends, and is inclusive to those who are asexual or aromantic
• The Saints day for bees and beekeepers – St Valentine was the patron saint of beekeepers (as were St Deborah [also known as St Abigail and St Gobnait], St Bartholemew, St Bernard, St Dyfnog, St Ambrose and many others) – so you could make St Valentine’s day a day focused on the wonder that is honey (ex-beekeeper here), or learning about beekeeping.

As Father's Day approaches, sending love to all who are:

• mourning their partners who were fathers, or who tried and weren't able to be fathers
• caring for children who are mourning their fathers
• mourning their own fathers
• missing ever having had a father figure.

Please take care of yourself this weekend.

"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.
​
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.

This time last year I…
This time last year you…
This time last year we…

Tim Dudley
1 December 1967 to 24 February 2018