Support with Grief
Grief is a normal, healthy response to losing someone you love. It's a continuous process that can start in your body after a diagnosis or if you see your person begin to change. It's likely to continue for years, you may be living with it for your lifetime. It will evolve through acute and unpredictable experiences, perhaps into something more complex and hopefully into an emotion you can live with.
Grief doesn't need to be frightening. It's an expression of love, which is unique and common to all of us. The more we talk about it the easier it can get. You are both unique and not alone.
Here we've shared some resources which have helped us with the various forms of grief we've experienced on our path.
Support During Anticipatory Grief
It's normal to feel anger, sadness, loss and a wide range of other emotions during your partner's illness. Your life has been limited too.
Author and nurse Janie Brown shares insights from her book 'Radical Acts of Love', about becoming closer during terminal illness
An unflinching memoir by Stacey Heale about her husband's terminal illness, love, identity and imperfect ways to grow through it.
The Grief School talks to research experts and people experiencing grief due to a life-threatening illness, exploring anticipatory grief.
This book, by Joe Hammond, is an observation on love and being a parent. He died of motor neurone disease in 2017.
The journalist Simon Boas wrote articles and an inspirational book on the precious joy and funny side of life before dying.
The Good Grief Trust and Dying Matters podcast have pre-bereavement stories and advice, to help you live well while talking about grief.
Support During Bereavement
There's no timeline for grief after losing the one you love. If you're not ready for these resources now, you can come back at any point.
Julia Samuel shares case studies from her years as a psychotherapist, to show the process of grief and offer advice on how to heal.
Films and music can access your emotion differently. Or try an audiobook: Grave Talk, Hello Beautiful, The Fault In Our Stars, A Man Called Ove.
Megan Devine writes about the harm of cultural positivity, to show that grief doesn't need fixing, it needs a space to exist and be seen.
Four models of grief are explained simply here. They may help you to make sense of your experience or talk to young people.
When reading feels too much: Widowed AF, Grief Out Loud, Terrible Thanks For Asking or Grief In Common (for teens)
A diverse range of stories and specialist content on the loss of a partner online can help you to access support in real life.
Support With Living Onwards
WAY (Widowed and Young) is a UK charity to support people after their partner dies. WAY organise online support groups, in-person meet-ups across the UK, events and connection for widows in all sorts of situations. You'd be welcome to join us, and be a part of the group that nobody wants to join.
Research on emotional recovery and resilience shows that most people grow stronger after experiencing trauma or hardship. Your loss will be immense, your grief is likely to be intense. And it doesn't have to be the end of you. In time you can adapt and a new version of you in your life will gradually become visible.
But you might not be able to contemplate that now. We've each somehow found our own way with that.
Sometimes it can be helpful to simply know it's possible. Children can go on and live normal healthy lives. Although it's horrible, losing a parent doesn't have to entirely define them. We wouldn't wish this loneliness and pain on you, and we want you to know that it is possible to endure it. Not every family falls apart. We each have our own challenges. We won't tell you that it's easy, only that one day, in the future you might be OK.
Learning to Live Again
Rachel write about her experience in the year after Mark died on Substack. Her articles are an emotionally raw portrayal of how it felt to be recently widowed. She talks about becoming the sole parent of three children and how she copes with her grief.
Suzanne writes about her experience of loss in The Widow's Handbook, and lists blogs by other young widows here. There are many inspiring memoirs, podcasts and resources out there. We hope we find what you need.