A Year Without Him

When Paul died I had no idea how I would get through the next minute, hour, day, week, month, let alone a whole year.

A whole year where I've not heard his voice or felt his arms around me or his hand in mine.

It feels like a lifetime ago. It is a completely different life, and sometimes I'm not entirely sure which life is real. The beautiful one that I had with him, or the one that I am living now. There are still elements of beauty in this 'new' life. I have watched my son graduate from university, celebrated as my daughter passed her driving test, raised a glass of champagne on my children's 18th and 21st birthdays.

Neither of these lives could exist without the other, and yet they both feel surreal and I wonder if they actually existed. I'm still not 100% sure that this isn't some sort of awful dream that I should be waking up from soon.

But somehow I made it through the first year and a lot of that is thanks to Paul. He was always the glass half full person, whereas I was the glass half empty. He showed me how to make lemonade from lemons and how I could be the best version of me.

In a way that neither of us realised at the time, he taught me how to be strong enough to get through this year. He told me in hospital that I was strong enough because he had made me strong. If he thought it was true, then I had to believe it too.

Paul and I met in February 2013. I had joined a MeetUp group and the first event I went to was a social event at a bar. I walked into the bar and he watched me as I came through the doors. In that instant he decided that he needed to pluck up the courage to come and talk to me. I was recently divorced and all my friends were happily married and my reason for joining a MeetUp group was to meet new girlfriends. Meeting a man was the last thing I wanted to do.

As soon as I walked into the bar I recognised the organiser of the event and I went over to talk to him. Turns out his mum used to be my old primary school teacher so we had a lot to talk about. I couldn't stay for long as I had another event to go to, so as soon as I finished my drink I got up to leave.

Unbeknownst to me, at the same time that I was finishing my drink, Paul was heading to the bar to get himself a fresh drink. He had plucked up enough courage and was ready to make his move. As soon as he started walking over to me, I stood up and left.

He asked the event organiser what my name was and that night the stalking began (in a very lovely and endearing way). When you join a MeetUp group you create a profile with your name and photo. Paul worked out who I was and then started adding himself to all the events that I had signed up for. He was there at the next pub event, the 5 mile walk, the climbing wall session and he would have gone on the 20 mile bike ride too had I not cancelled at the last minute. He later confided the relief he felt when I cancelled.

Eventually we became a couple and I introduced him to my two young children.

I always said he peaked too soon because in the first year of us being together he had taken me to Paris, to Devon and to New York. He treated me like a princess and I fell in love with my Prince Charming.

We were soul mates. We could talk for hours and still have plenty of conversation left. Equally we could sit in silence and enjoy just being in the moment together. He was my safe place, and when I was with him I knew how good life was. This is what movies are made of.

When he first took me on a plane I did warn him that I had a tendency to panic, yet he somehow made me feel so safe. On our trip to New York I did tell all the other passengers on the plane who were within earshot that we were all going to die. Luckily Paul managed to calm me down (and all the passengers that I managed to instil a lifelong fear of flying in to).

Thanks to Paul I overcame my fear of flying and I actually began to enjoy the flying experience. Which was a good thing as his youngest daughter lived in Australia and he wanted us all to fly over to meet her.

After he died I took my first trip abroad with my daughter. It was the scariest trip I'd ever done and my daughter had to become the 'responsible adult'. It wasn't the flight that scared me. In fact being up in the air above the clouds was the closest that I had felt to Paul since he died. Flying is now like a drug that I need again and again just to feel 30,000 feet closer to him.

That trip pushed me so far out of my comfort zone and I questioned if this is what travelling was now going to be like.

Thankfully the next trip after was easier, and the one after that even easier.

When it came to the one year anniversary of Paul's death the children and I went to Belfast for the weekend. I could get my mile high fix (not the sexual kind) and as a family we could get away from it all. The dread of the anniversary day, the well meaning messages (they are lovely, but are equally exhausting), the constant memories of that day going over and over in our minds.

We survived the death anniversary.

The enjoyment for travel thankfully has now resumed along with it the majority of my abilities to act as the responsible adult. There will always be sadness at the empty plane seat or the booking of a restaurant for 3 rather than 4. But now wherever we go I always buy a postcard and tell him about the trip so that in a way I feel that he has come too.

Paul always made me the best version of me. He believed in me when I doubted myself and he pushed me when I needed a gentle push.

He was the confident one. He loved nothing more than standing in front of an audience for work and presenting - me on the other hand hated the limelight. When I came home one day during Covid and said that I wanted to start a pet care business he was completely behind me and supported me to make it the best service in town with the best reputation.

I would often send him out to feed a cat at 7am but he never complained and did what he was told! One of my clients once joked that he was the best intern I'd ever had and she wasn't wrong. I decided to put myself up for a Pet Business Award but in order to compete I had to present to a roomful of people and tell them all about my business and the marketing activities that I had done over the year.

This would have been a walk in the park for Paul, but for me this caused weeks of panic and dread and regularly talking myself out of doing it.

We travelled up to Sunderland where the event was taking place and I successfully managed my presentation. Paul was with me throughout and was there when the disappointment hit when I didn't win.

He knew that it wasn't just about the award - it was that I had truly stepped out of my comfort zone.

I always try to believe that things happen for a reason and whilst at the time I couldn't understand why I didn't win the award I now know why. It was the wrong time and I wasn't ready.

This is one of the most surprising things that I have found in myself since Paul died. The thought of presenting doesn't scare me quite as much as it once did. I'm not sure that I'm ready to stand in front of a roomful of people, but I have been on the radio and on a podcast.

When you have experienced a loss so great there is a part of you that dies with them and a version of you that survives. I would love nothing more than for Paul to have heard me when I went on the radio. I talked for 2 hours about him, played his favourite songs and came out of the studio buzzing. This is not the Caroline that Paul saw, but this is the Caroline that Paul knew was in me. I just wish it hadn't taken his death for her to come out.

And this is why I created Letters After Loss.

Because I know what it feels like to have a day lifted by something as simple as a handwritten letter through the letterbox. I know what it means to feel less alone in this. And I know that if it helped me, it can help you too.

If you've been thinking about joining but haven't quite taken the leap yet, I just want to say - I would love to have you. The doors close on Sunday and won't reopen for another two months. There's no pressure, but if Letters After Loss feels like the right thing for you right now, then this is the moment.

You don't have to navigate this alone.

You can join us here.