30 Reasons Why Widows Are So Blooming Amazing

Since losing Paul, I’ve heard the same two phrases over and over: “You’re so strong” and “You’re doing so well.”

And honestly, I’d rather hear those than nothing at all. Because some people have run for the hills, and I’ll take clumsy kindness over silence every time.

But here’s what I’ve learned from walking this path.

Grief changes you. It builds something in you that you never asked for and never wanted. It’s an exhausting, relentless kind of strength that gets you through the supermarket shop when every aisle feels like a minefield. It’s the strength that when you fall down it helps you to get back up, and keep going anyway.

My life prior to grief, like most people, had its fair share of traumas. My son at 6 months old had to undergo heart surgery, I had a difficult pregnancy with my daughter and it was 50:50 as to whether she would make it (she did make it and is very healthy teenager). When my children were still young my (now ex) husband turned round and told me he didn’t love and never had.

I have experienced pain and have had to become a fighter.

BUT, watching your person take their last breath and learning how to live each day afterwards requires an entirely different kind of strength.

Not in your worst nightmares could you ever imagine what this feels like until you experience it.

We used to have our cheerleaders standing by our sides. And now they're gone, we have to become our own cheerleaders. We have to lift ourselves up when we’re down.

I try to remain positive and I try to feel optimistic towards the future, but grief is a rollercoaster and you never know when the dips and twists are coming. You just buckle up, keep your hands inside the cart and hope that you remember to breathe.

So to every widow riding the rollercoaster at full throttle here’s your reminder of how extraordinary you are. Here are your 30 reasons why.

(I've created a beautiful printable of them that you can print off, stick them to the fridge, say them out loud and pat yourself on the back.)

30 Reasons why widows are so blooming amazing

1.They've survived the worst phone call of their life and somehow still get out of

bed.

2.They've learned to be two people at once, and they're pulling it off.

3.They cry in the car, compose themselves, and walk into the supermarket because there is no food in the house.

4.They remember every detail about someone they love, and carry it carefully, every single day because they are so worried that they will forget.

5.They've sat with a grief so heavy most people can't even imagine it, and they're still here.

6.They figure out all the jobs that they their person used to be in charge of, and deal with whatever shit comes their way.

7.They learn how to laugh again. That first proper belly life will catch them off guard. Most people will see it as a sign of healing, they see it as guilt.

8.They know what really matters now, in a way most people don't learn in a lifetime. Creating memories are the most important things.

9.They've had to rebuild their identity from scratch, and they're doing it with no instruction manual. They hate the fact that their person never got to meet this new version of them.

10.They write birthday cards even though the recipient will forever be the same age.

11.They've become fluent in a language nobody wants to learn, and they use it to help others. Don’t ever cross a group of widows!

12.They show up for their kids even on the days they're running on empty.

13.They've sat in a restaurant alone and ordered anyway.

14.They've walked into a room full of couples and held their head up and smiled even though they weren’t smiling on the inside.

15.They've learned the difference between a good grief day and a bad one. And they're kind to themselves on both.

16.They keep the memory alive in the most beautiful, ordinary ways. A song. Their favourite mug. A terrible joke he would have loved.

17.They ask for help even when every instinct tells them not to. If they ask for help it’s because they have tried their hardest.

18.They lie awake on their side of the bed and still choose to face tomorrow.

19.They've sat through well-meaning advice from people who have absolutely no idea and they respond with grace. They’ve heard the advice about how grief goes through stages and don’t have the energy to correct.

20.They've learned that grief and love are the same thing wearing different coats.

21.They've cancelled plans, needed more time, gone quiet. And come back anyway.

22.They've kept friendships going even when those friendships got awkward and people didn't know what to say.

23.They've raised a glass to someone who isn't there and meant every single word.

24.They find ways to feel close to them - in music, in places, in a saying

25.They're braver than they ever wanted to have to be.

26.They've found, or are finding, or are looking for their version of what comes next.

27.They know their favourite song, their coffee order, the face they made when something delighted them. And they always will.

28.They've built something - a routine, a life, a business, a reason to get dressed - out of the wreckage of the hardest times.

29.They reach out to other widows, not because it's easy, but because they know what it meant when someone reached out to them.

30.They loved someone so completely that losing them broke them open. And what came through the cracks? Strength they didn't know they had.

And knowing all of that, if they could go back in time, they would and they would still fall in love with that person all over again.

If you’ve read this and found yourself nodding along, please take a moment to recognise how amazing you are. You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to be strong all the time. But I hope somewhere in this list you saw yourself, and remembered just how much you’re carrying, and how beautifully you’re carrying it.

You are living proof that love doesn’t end, it transforms. And that, lovely, is what makes you so blooming amazing.

If you’d like to be around other women who truly get it, not in a therapy way, but in a real, heart-to-heart connection through handwritten letters way then come and find out more about Letters After Loss. It exists because I needed this connection too, and I couldn’t find it. So I created it, and I’d love for you to join us.