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 may be the hardest. Also, like other milestones, the run up to it may be more difficult than the day itself. 
 
What to do on the day
It's getting harder to avoid St Valentine's Day - the ads and trailers on TV, articles in magazines and newspapers, chat on social media sites, the shelves of food and drink in the supermarkets. Some online marketing companies offer the opportunity to opt out from Valentine’s Day messaging (this can also be an opportunity to go through your inbox and junk mail and unsubscribe from all the marketing messages that are cluttering your email and your brain).

While you may not be able to completely get away from it, there are things you can do make it easier. 

• Accept that it might be a day of grief attacks
• Take time out to celebrate your partner and the love you shared
• Buy yourself chocolates and flowers, and get some for friends and family
• Take it as a day to be kind to yourself and focus on some self-care
• Go to the cinema or theatre and watch something totally unromantic
• Host a bring and share meal – there will be other people trying to avoid Valentine's Day just as much as you
• Treat yourself to something you wouldn't normally do – make yourself your favourite meal, get a takeaway, go somewhere nice for the day (ideally away from all of the shops), book a massage

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 (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
• St Valentine was the patron saint of beekeepers – so have a day focused on planting insect-friendly flowers or learning about bees and beekeeping (ex-beekeeper here)
• Celebrate or Random Acts of Kindness Day (17 February) or Love Your Pet Day (20 February) a few days early

If it helps – Valentine’s Day has a pretty dark origin story (trigger warnings for this one). It also has a major impact on the planet, generating 9 million kilograms of CO2 and all kinds of plastic pollution. And chocolate and roses are often reduced the day after...

Moving into a new year for new widows means moving from 'My partner died this year' to 'My partner died last year'. For those who have been widowed longer, it can feel like their person is moving further into the past.
 
Another unexpected loss.

Trigger warning: Discussions of death, including violent death
 
It's October. The days are getting shorter, the leaves are starting to turn yellow and red and gold. The nights are getting colder and there's a hint of frost in the air. The shops are filling with orange and black. With pumpkins, costumes and masks. And if you live somewhere where people decorate their houses and gardens, there might be skulls and coffins and ghosts all over the place. There'll be children dressed up knocking on the door for sweets. And then, a few days later, Remember remember! The fifth of November, with bonfires and fireworks. Parties, food, drinks, dressing up, playing games. It's just fun, after all.
 
For some widows, though, Halloween and Bonfire Night can be really hard.
 
The imagery of death around Halloween all over shops, people's houses and gardens, and in social media, such as skulls, skeletons, fake tombstones and coffins, can bring back awful memories and trigger flashbacks. The coffins bring back some of the intrusive thoughts that I have fought to deal with over the past four and a half years.
 
For people whose partners have died a violent death, the images of bodies with nooses around their neck, or with bleeding wounds, can be devastating. Halloween depicts graveyards as scary, with bones and reaching arms, not as the safe resting places that we have created for the people we love.
 
The sounds and smells of Bonfire Night can be particularly hard where death by fire or gunshot has left widows with PTSD. These can also be difficult for autistic widows.
 
What to do?

• Keeping away from the imagery of Halloween can be hard – try to avoid big shops, supermarkets and shopping centres in the run up to the end of October
• Repeat to yourself that none of the things that you see are real
• Get some exercise during the day to try to wear yourself out
• Blackout curtains, blankets over the windows, ear protectors or plugs, white-noise generators and your favourite playlists can limit the sounds and sights of Bonfire Night (but noise-cancelling headphones don't always work)
• Suggest that local displays use silent fireworks
• Do something nice for yourself that stimulates the other senses – good food, scented candles, have a warm bath, snuggle up under a weighted blanket.
• Use grounding techniques to calm yourself if you get stressed or panicky

 

I've had a birthday this week.

My birthday has long been a bittersweet day. My first husband's mother died suddenly and unexpectedly on my 24th birthday, nine months before we got married. He rang me just as I was getting up, and I knew as soon as he spoke that something was wrong. That was the first death close to me.
 
Roll on a couple of decades, and Tim and I married on my birthday. Everyone sang happy birthday to me at the reception. It seemed like a lovely thing to do at the time. But after Tim died, this left me with two milestones on one day. A birthday in September is associated with a change of the seasons, and I think my brain and body subconsciously mark the approach of the date with the smells, sounds, temperature and day length of oncoming autumn, even before I realise that the date is approaching.
 
My birthday rolls into the milestones. Tim's birthday in December. Christmas, which was often a time just for the two of us. New Year, where we saw the people we've partied with since our early twenties. And then his death date, 24 February. And so, I find this time of year tough, and often have to surf a wave of depression around now. Which means I need to try to take my own advice. I'm going to be kind to myself. Sit through the grief attacks. And know that the depression wave will lift.

The darkness of winter can be hard for some people. I don't like it, and I found it even harder when I was living alone. Here are a few hints and tips for making the winter feel more comfortable. ​​

• If you go out, have lamps and radios on timers so there is light and sound when you get in. You can use plug timers, smart light bulbs and sockets, and smart phone apps.
• Smart heating systems mean that you can make sure the heating is on when you get in. 
• Keep moving – exercise warms you up and can pick up your mood.
• Hot water bottles are old school but comforting.
• Have a lovely snug blanket on the sofa, and buy yourself a cosy dressing gown and pair of pyjamas or onesie. 
• Draughtproof everything you can.
• Candles or bio-ethanol burners make rooms feel cosier.
• Fairy lights aren't just for Christmas - LED ones indoors and solar ones outdoors give an extra glow.
• A fleecy electric over-blanket means you can be snug, even when the rest of the house isn't.
• Being ill on your own is rubbish - create an 'I'm not well pack', with cold and flu remedies and nice things too.

Someone once said to me to think of this time of year being when the seeds are in the ground waiting for spring. This helps me feel a bit more positive about the dark mornings.
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Seasonal affective disorder
​Many people get affected by changes in the seasons, but if the winter blues are lasting a long time and really affecting your life, you might have winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This is a low mood that gets worse in the winter. According to the NHS, symptoms of SAD (sometimes called winter depression) include:

• a persistent low mood
• a loss of pleasure or interest in normal everyday activities
• irritability
• feelings of despair, guilt and worthlessness
• feeling lethargic (lacking in energy) and sleepy during the day
• sleeping for longer than normal and finding it hard to get up in the morning
• craving carbohydrates and gaining weight.

Our sleep patterns, appetite, mood and activity are linked to levels of light, and for some people the levels of light in the winter just aren't enough. Lower levels of light can also affect our sleep-wake cycles. There a few things that might help:

• Spend as much time in natural daylight as you can.
• Take regular exercise, outdoors and in daylight if possible.
• Plan ahead – stock up on things, such as ready meals, if you know you won't have the energy to cook.
• Self care is really important - create a self-care box, with favourite books or films, things to pamper yourself with, a cosy wrap or blanket.
• Rest when you need to.
• Try light therapy – change some of your lightbulbs for brighter ones (the higher the lux the brighter the light), get a light box or SAD lamp, or try a sunrise alarm clock.

Vitamin D may or may not help SAD, but the NHS recommends that people in the UK should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter.
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If SAD is really affecting your life, talk to your GP. For some people, cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling, psychotherapy or antidepressants can help.

Christmas can be such an emotional time, but it can be even more challenging for widows, because it brings up a lot of memories, happy or sad. As with so many things about being a widow, there is no right or wrong. No rules. Do what you need to do. And do it as one moment, one step, one breath at a time.

Avoid the hype
Christmas is everywhere, and you can cut down your exposure to it by using ad blockers online, unsubscribing from marketing emails, watching DVDs, streaming services or BBC to avoid ads, listening to albums, podcasts, spoken word radio such as Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra or Radio 5 Live or music streaming services to avoid Christmas music on the radio, or recording live TV so you can fast-forward through ads. Shop online (at independent shops if possible) to avoid Christmas fluff, furbelows, jumpers, tinsel and endlessly looping Christmas music. 

Taking the last couple of days off work before Christmas can get you out of all the Christmas talk.

Give yourself permission
Give yourself permission to laugh, cry, go out, stay in, or go to things and leave early. And whatever you plan to do, you are totally allowed to change your mind.

Say no
Don't do anything you don't want to. Fib if you need to, but just say no. You don't have to go to the party, wear the jumper, or get involved in the Secreat Santa if you don't want to. 

Announce your intentions early
The first year I decided to spend Christmas afternoon with friends. The second, I decided to head off to a shepherd's hut in the Lake District. Both years I told my family early, to stop the well-intentioned invitations. I love my family, and I love spending time with them, but I just didn't want to be part of a family Christmas without Tim.

Be aware that things can get overwhelming
If you are part of a big celebration, it can get too much sometimes. Take a breath, try grounding (five things you see, four things you hear, three things you touch, two things you smell, one thing you taste), or find a quiet corner for a moment. 

Prepare people
Let people know that you might have tough moments, and let them know whether you want to be fussed, ignored, hugged or distracted. And if you are spending it alone, you can ask someone to check in on you at some point of the day if that would help.

Have an exit strategy
If I go to a big event, I like to arrive early so that I can find places to hide if I need them, and so that I'm not walking into a full and busy room. Driving or having a taxi booked means that you can leave early if you want to – taxis can always be rescheduled if you find you are having fun. 

Ignore Christmas completely
It's allowed. Buy nice non-Christmas food, stock up on non-Christmas films, binge on box sets. Shut the door on Christmas Eve and ignore the world, and then emerge on Boxing Day. Switching off social media can help you to keep Christmas away too.

Don't give in to pressure from others
Spending Christmas alone, with friends, with strangers, working, volunteering, whatever – if it's what you want to do, then just do it. Don't feel that you have to fit in.

Volunteer
Volunteer if you want to, bit don't do it because you feel you ought to.

Create new memories
Do something totally different. I have amazing memories of the year I went and stayed in a shepherd's hut. I stocked up on goodies, stacked my Kindle full of books, saw a friend for Christmas lunch, but for the rest of the time I looked at the view, pottered around, ate my body weight in chocolate, and slept. You can have a tradition of not having a tradition.

Buy yourself something nice
A big present, a little present – it doesn't matter what it is, but have something special just for you on Christmas Day. You can say it's from you, or from your partner, or from your cat. Whatever you want.

Enjoy it
You are allowed to enjoy whatever it is that you are doing. Don't feel guilty.
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Make plans
It might be a good idea to have some plans made, otherwise you might just drift and feel worse. But don't plan so much that you feel guilty about not doing it all. Stock up on the food you need, decorate the house and tree if you want to, plan to catch up on some hobbies or some reading, go for a walk, pamper yourself with a long bath. Whatever you really fancy that you don't normally have time to do.