Grief. When the Blurriest of Photos Paints the Truest of Pictures.

Grief. When the Blurriest of Photos Paints the Clearest of Pictures.

Life has thrown such great losses at me over the last few years, that upon reflection, still feel surreal to have happened. Nathan, my late partner died in 2018. I was 38, he was 39. Our baby was only 2 years old. How is that fair? I will never understand.

Looking at myself in the photo below, I see pure innocence. I naively thought I was immune to tragedy. I would never have believed you if you told me how our future would roll out.

It’s the blurriest of photos….photos with no filters that were taken with an old school flip screen mobile phone. We were so excited having a camera set in the phone….those blurry photos paint pictures of love at that time with such clarity.

I have spent a significant amount of time in widow fury, questioning and bargaining with life without a definite response or answer.

Grief has taught me that life gives and takes what it wants. I used to think we had ultimate control over such existential decisions but the truth is a big fat no, we don’t. The ultimate decision is bigger than what we mere mortal humans will ever understand on this earth.

For me, I have never felt so terrified and alone after Nathan died. Grief for me was such a shock. It was my friends, family and community that kept me afloat. The people around me who asked questions about my grief, who spoke Nathan’s name out loud, who were brave and acknowledged my grief and shared their own grief.

But what I do know is that we are fortunate in this life to choose whether we love and treat others kindly, with respect and with compassion. These parts, after Nathan’s death, I have chosen to embrace.

My whole family has been impacted by Nathan’s death and the loss of his jolly self every single day. But what lives on is our connection to Nathan, to his kindness, to his staunchness, to his humour, his love of life, travel, his family and to his everlasting spirit. We move forward feeling privileged to have shared life with him.

I often get asked “how do you do what you do with Grief Connect® Services and have your own grief for Nathan and (recently) your Dad to deal with at the same time”? It’s a good question and I often reflect on it to ensure I am solid in knowing my “why” in moving forward.

The services that I have founded under Grief Connect®, they are Nathan’s legacy (and also now that of my Dad’s). Grief Connect® services exist because of Nathan’s incredible life. Grief Connect® is underpinned by the the view that though our person may not be on this earth with us, their life lives on, through memories, through story telling and through honouring their life as we move forward with our lives. We can start these convesations by asking questions.

Not sure what questions to ask??? So, I combined my lived experience together with my academic and professional experiences to found the Grief Language Project® and recently I launched The Grief Language Project® Connect Cards. The Cards assist workplaces, communities, families and individuals to support each other by asking questions with the aim of connecting with each other through grief, with compassion and respect.

Together, let’s reduce the sense of social isolation that can accompany grief. More information on The Grief Language Project® Connect Cards is available at: www.griefconnect.com.au/connectcards/

So here is the write up from me and my share for International Widows Day: Widowhood is grief, and one of the deepest forms of grief a person can ever experience. It is a type of grief that I would never wish on my worst enemy. It is unfathomable to explain just how horrendous, devastating and lonely widowhood grief can feel. Yesterday, I did not write this blog like I had planned originally, because I was out spending time with one of my children. And let me tell you, as a widowed parent, I have spent most of my early widowhood feeling like I was the shittiest parent ever.

Firstly, because suddenly I was doing a job that I never signed up to do on my own. What a joke that was. It was supposed to be two of us. Nathan and I – riding the rollercoaster of parenting together. He was supposed to be alive and keep working as a parenting team alongside me.

Secondly, because even though I tried my best throughout all of my parenting, it was not always great. My children were not only managing their own grief, but they were also experiencing their mother’s grief. At times it as not pretty and was damned right ugly at times. I’m not proud of that.

My window of tolerance very small with irritability and impatience a go to in my mothering survival. I know what they have seen is a mum who has struggled with grief missing their Dad (and Step Dad). They have had a mum who has not ticked all the boxes of being a perfect parent. But lets face it… that’s a load of rubbish as there is no such thing as a perfect parent, only an ideal.

As a young widowed parent, I was forced to be questioning how I was going to continue find ways to keep feeding my children? How was I going to keep a roof over our heads long term? Could we stay living in our family home? Because one half of the household income is no longer there to pay the bills and Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs was under threat. Because there is no crisis widowed payment from Centrelink (another issue for another write up) and it’s walking away from Centrelink with no support and in deep grief after asking for help with a “too bad, so sad” response.

Let me tell you that the feeling of not knowing if you can keep your house, some kind of continuing lifestyle for your kids, or how you are going to pay the car registration and many other bills that keep arriving, is absolutely terrifying and only serves to compound grief missing your person.

And that is just scratching the surface of what widowhood is about. Because when our person dies, our entire life turns into something we do not recognise, do not know, did not ask for, and never wanted. Within this deep grief, we are forced to continue pushing through to the next day. But quite often, that is too much. People wanting to help around make statements of good intent and say “just get through the next day”… NO. This is about getting through the next hour or the next minute. It is survival mode at it’s purest.

Yes, time has gone on for me. I never thought it would. But here we are, me writing, you reading, 8 years after Nathan died. My life has changed immensely in ways that I never thought possible. And also, as a widow, when I have days like yesterday, where I am functioning and multitasking like a boss again, and also spending quality time with my kids, that has to be celebrated, and means that it’s OK to write this blog a day late.

To non-widowed parents, yesterday, might have seemed like just another average day. Just another day of doing routine tasks. But for me, and for many widowed people out there, it is an achievement in grief, and in life. Maggie Dent, an incredible Parenting Expert advocates that ‘You just have to be a good parent 30-40% of the time’ on her “Good Enough Parent” podcast. So, yesterday, as a widowed parent, to be able to get through the day and feel like a “good enough parent” is something worth celebrating and I’m high fiving myself. I know Nathan would be high fiving me right back from the heavens. So I’ll take that and embrace it.

Because the reality is that for many widowed people, we can lower those percentage numbers… because running on empty and still making it to the end of the day.. or the end of the hour in one piece and only ‘just’ functioning is a huge achievement when experiencing deep grief.

To all of my widowed friends and peers out there who are pushing hard though each day, please know that you are freaking amazing. Huge credit to you for arriving at this point in time, right now. You are doing great, even though it doesn’t feel like it. I see you. Remember that you are not alone.

Celebrate the small wins. And remember that although it might not feel like it, there is hope and there is a future ahead.

As we move into the day after International Widows’ Day, others may move forward, but we remember.

We live being widowed every single day.

If you know someone who is widowed and grieving, please let them know about the Grief Connect® Community. A space for grief to be shared and supported by peers in live online conversations and posts. Access the community by clicking the button below.