TV show that’ll help widows smile again
People keep buying me bloody flowers. What am I going to do with them?’ asks recently widowed Cathy, 59, in the new BBC Two drama Mum.
I know what she means. After my husband died 12 years ago, the house quickly began to look like a funeral parlour. Flowers need looking after; they need vases and places to put them — it became a juggling act. Comic even.
Humour is not usually associated with being a widow, but so much of the gentle comedy in this groundbreaking six-part show about widowhood rang true for me.
As we watch Cathy (played by the marvellous Lesley Manville) over the course of a year, we see how you can survive unimaginable loss and find humour in the more surreal moments.
I lost my husband Michael suddenly. He had a brain haemorrhage at the age of 50. I was 47; our son ruairi was eight. There’s no sugar-coating grief. But I had to get on with it, for my son’s sake.
Nobody really knows what you are going through, and no matter how well-meaning, people can say the clumsiest things, such as ‘Time heals all wounds’ (it doesn’t), ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, and my own pet hate: ‘I know how you feel . . . ’
Looking back I should have said: ‘You don’t know how I feel. But you could ask me how I am; I may not be able to tell you exactly, because I am still in such a daze, but I’ll thank you for your concern. Or you could simply say, “I’m sorry.” ’
At the time I was too shellshocked to comment. I could only smile at how farcical some of the comments were. But when I finally sought out other widows through a local support group, it was this shared sense of the absurd that provided our lighter moments.
There is a moment in Mum where Cathy loses her glasses for the second time, and — for the second time — finds them on her head. ‘I’m losing it!’ she declares.
I know ‘senior moments’ happen to everyone, but there is a very real sense in the first months after bereavement that you might be going mad. I found it hard to look after myself properly — to remember to eat, or brush my hair. I’m quite sure I looked slightly deranged sometimes as I wandered around the supermarket, tears pouring down my face.
There’s a sense of waiting that hovers over the initial months: waiting for life to feel normal again (which it never will, or not the same); waiting for the person who has died to walk back into the room (it takes ages before this stops). But things do change over time.
Birthdays, Christmas, Valentine’s, all family events have to be steered through. Not to mention the anniversary of the death, which can bring with it a sense of achievement for having made it this far, and a renewed sense of loss.
My son is now 20 and almost 6 ft tall. He’s a lovely man and we are very close. But it pains me that his father is not here to see him. And it always will.
Michael is in my thoughts daily. One thing I loved about him was his sense of humour, which my son has inherited.
As Mum shows us, there can be a funny side to every situation, even in the midst of tragedy. To see me and my widowed friends laughing uproariously in the pub as we discuss our spouses’ funerals, you’d never suspect what we were talking about.
Grief may take you to the extremes but it can also give you a poignant new appreciation of life’s joys. After all, you are a survivor.
HOW TO SURVIVE THE FIRST YEAR The funeral
IT’s your day, and although it’s important to ask for help and support, don’t let anyone impose their own ideas on you.
This can be difficult with in-laws or adult children, but you need to think of yourself as ‘mourner-in-chief ’. Make sure you have someone to stay over with you the night after to talk things through.
The first weeks
THERE’s a lot of paperwork following a death, so take it a bit at a time. Banks and institutions can be insensitive when dealing with bereaved people — I was told more than once that they needed to speak to the account holder, who I had just told them was dead.
I had to learn to ask for help. People say: ‘If there’s anything I can do . . . ’, so think about how they actually might be able to help, such as with childcare or gardening.
The first months
Losing a partner is, as the writer Katharine Whitehorn has observed, ‘like having to learn to live in another country where you’re an unwilling refugee’. If you’re shattered and need a day in bed, take it. If you feel like a fun night out with friends, that’s OK, too.
Counselling can be a great help — it’s important to have emotional support as you find your way forward. WAY — Widowed & Young is an organisation offering support for young bereaved spouses and their families. I found it incredibly useful to talk to others who had gone through a similar experience, and made lasting friendships.
Facing the future
I would caution against making big life decisions in the first year. I decided that we would move out of London, but circumstances conspired to stop me. Now I’m glad I stayed in a familiar community with friends and support.
Grief alters you, and not everyone can go the distance. People I had known for years vanished from my life, while others stepped forward and became invaluable.
If you have always socialised with other couples, you may find yourself suddenly left out of the usual invitations. And it’s not uncommon for a bereaved person to attract unwanted sexual attention, even from friends’ partners.
dating is probably a totally different landscape from when you met your spouse. If you have had a loving partnership snatched away, you may be anxious to ‘fill the empty chair’, or feel you will never be able to love anyone else.
Take it gently and don’t expect too much from early encounters — think of it as ‘socialising practice’.
Being alone after a long marriage can be a journey of self-discovery. I’ve developed previously hidden sides of myself — my husband was a well-known writer, but since his death I have published a book of my own. I’m a stronger person now, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have him back in a heartbeat.