Tag: Resilience

On my own

Various pictures of Emma Charlesworth and her family from 2005 to present.

It’s probably no surprise that the title of this blog is linked to Les Misérables. For someone who at the start of 2024 said “I don’t really feel the need to see it again,” it’s somehow become part of my life. I didn’t envisage when I made this statement that I’d be seeing it in London, Aberdeen, Manchester and Abu Dhabi. I certainly didn’t envisage that I’d be watching my daughter in the one of the lead roles. And of course. None of the songs are triggering or make me cry. Nope. Not even one. 

The local production which my daughter was in recently involved an intense two-week rehearsal schedule. The venue for these rehearsals was about a five-minute drive from where Mr C used to work. The irony was not lost on me. There was me getting up at 4:30am so that I could drive to a local train station, get an early train into work and leave the office early to pick her up. Meanwhile, my mum and stepdad had to drop her on those days so that she could get there. And then on the days I wasn’t in the office, I did both drop off and pick up. I don’t begrudge this in the slightest, I’m her mum and I knew that her anxiety wouldn’t cope with her getting the train, but it still felt like a military mission to organise. All the while knowing that if I wasn’t a widow, this wouldn’t have been the case. Mr C could have done the drop off and pick up on his way to and from work. Again. Pure conjecture and speculation because I don’t actually know where he’d be working, but the crux of the matter is this. It wouldn’t have been solely down to me to orchestrate all of the running around. 

My daughter was phenomenal. No other word for it. Even if I wasn’t a particular fan of watching her be a prostitute. Or the moment when she died, and they covered her with a sheet. Her being cast as Fantine was never going to be an easy watch! But I don’t really have the words to articulate just how proud and emotional I felt watching her. Seeing her living her best life on that stage. I could only begin to imagine just what her dad would have felt seeing her up there. And I know he was playing heavily on her mind during the performances too. There was an issue with her microphone during one of the shows that I wasn’t watching, and I got a little voice note from her saying how much she wanted a dad hug. Our everyday lives continue to be impacted by his death. Her dad wasn’t there to scoop her up at the end of that show and give her that hug. Missing him at those really important moments. 

And as well as missing him and running round like a loon, it was during this rehearsal schedule that I received my first ever speeding ticket. I knew I was running a little bit late that morning but hadn’t realised I was going fractionally over the speed limit. I completely own it. I was the one driving that morning and I must have just taken my eye off the ball for a split second. But as I sat there reading the letter that was sent out, it made me stop and think. Was this actually a metaphor for me to slow down a little bit in life more generally? 

I’ve lost count recently of how many times I’ve heard “you’re doing too much” and “I don’t know how you do it.” But as I’ve felt so often since my late husband died, I don’t really feel I have a choice. I can’t sit back and do nothing just because he died. I still have to work and commute to an office three days a week, I have bills to pay. I still have to raise our child. I still have to do the housework, finances and all that comes with being a homeowner. Yes. I could just focus on these aspects of my life but why should I? Why shouldn’t I try to forge a life and map out a future for me? 

You see, this is the other thought that is regularly crossing my mind. I’m rapidly approaching a time when I’m going to be on my own. Change is coming and I have to start thinking about my future as ‘Emma’ rather than ‘Mum’ and planning for it. My daughter starts Year 11 when she returns to school in September and will be taking GCSEs in 2026. If all goes to plan, she’ll be leaving school following this to go to college. After that, there’ll be the next phase in her life, and she’ll in theory be heading off to do a degree. And what happens to me then? If all I’ve done is work and raise her, what do I then do in 2028? Both of these would be a heck of an achievement in themselves given all we’ve been through; I don’t deny that; but I can’t help but feel I need to future proof my life too. 

Granted. When it comes to futureproofing, there might have been an easier and less demanding way to do this. But I have to do it in a way that works for me and by doing something I’m passionate about. I was absolutely honoured to have been appointed as a Trustee for Widowed and Young in July and I’m looking forward to seeing what I can achieve in this role. In December 2023 I said I was going to write a book and that has now been written. I have been working with the team at Softwood Books to bring this to life and I’m excited to see what this brings. But both of these require my time and energy. Which is why I can see why people tell me I’m doing too much. In a way I no doubt am. But it’s easy to say that when you haven’t been through what I have. When you haven’t had your future completely decimated. 

Becoming a widow at the age of 39 wasn’t on the future plan when I was growing up. And that’s why I push myself. I’ve had one future ripped away from me. I can’t bear the thought of not having a new one to look forward to. For such a long time, the future was overwhelming. It scared me to look beyond the next day. But now I have to think about it. Because as my daughter starts to enter the next phase of her life, she’ll no longer need me in the same way she has. And then what becomes of me? It’s a thought that crosses my mind on such a regular basis. What happens to me? Empty nest syndrome is such a common feeling for millions of people but for me it’s going to hit that little bit differently. I really will be on my own when that happens. 

Because I’ve recently been thinking about whether she and I are too co-dependent on each other. The circumstances regarding our bereavement no doubt forced us to be. In the first year after Mr C died, she was only in school for four months. No-one stepped foot inside our house for nearly three months after he died and even then, it was very minimal. I didn’t have to commute to London. We didn’t really have to navigate a social life. We became quite insular. It did pretty much feel like it was Team Charlesworth against the world. I think the two of us supported each other and held each other up in ways that we didn’t even realise we were doing. She became my sole reason for getting out of bed each day. I became her one constant in life. We’d both lost our other one constant, it was instinctive to cling to the one remaining. 

I guess I’ve found myself being a lot more reflective this August than I normally would be. I hadn’t really realised why until I broke a little bit at work last week. I was feeling the strain of being a solo parent. Of juggling so much. Of not having that one person who could step in to pick up the slack when needed. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like a widow. That might sound daft given I’ve been living this life for five years now, but when you’re just living your life and you’ve become accustomed to living with grief every day, you sometimes forget to give yourself a little bit of kindness. Of remembering the magnitude of everything you’ve gone through and what’s led you to where you are in your life. I was so lucky that a colleague accompanied me for a walk to help me clear my head but when I said to her “what would have been my 20th wedding anniversary is fast approaching,” I heard my voice crack. 

I haven’t really thought about just how significant this wedding anniversary was going to be. For the past few years, I’ve referred to the date as the anniversary of the day I became a Charlesworth. I’ve found it hard to refer to it as a wedding anniversary as I no longer feel married. I was. There is no denying it. I don’t want to. But I’m not married now. Every widow is different, but for me, I’m not married. I’m on my own. I’m widowed. Just writing that is hard. I battled with the phrase widow for a very long time. Now it’s a part of my identity. 

This time 20 years ago I was just over two weeks away from getting married. While I didn’t know exactly what the future was going to look like, I had a pretty good idea. I never envisaged my husband dying in a global pandemic just over 14 years later. That being a widow would become a part of my identity. The Friday of the August Bank Holiday weekend in 2005 saw the start of my hen weekend celebrations. A night out in Maidstone before heading to Bournemouth for the rest of the weekend. Full of hope. Full of plans. Some realised. Others not. 

I knew quite early on that I’d need to mark this anniversary. And so, I chose to think of a way to celebrate his life. To celebrate the marriage I did have. CharlieFest: Dress to Impress is how I decided to do that. To once again raise funds for the Intensive Care Unit at Medway Maritime Hospital. The unit who worked so tirelessly to care for him in the last three weeks of his life. Oh yes, did I forget to mention that I’m planning an event as well as working full time, becoming a Trustee and publishing a book? And I wonder why people tell me I do too much. 

If I’m honest. This event has become like a second full time job. Even more so than the previous two I’ve held. Everything about this year has felt harder. The cost of living. The ticket sales. The raffle ticket sales. People not seeing my social media posts because of the algorithm. The posts in local Facebook groups which are left as pending. The organisation of it and unexpected changes. All of which take their toll. Those nagging thoughts that plague me have become a bit more prevalent over the past few weeks. Do people care less about what happened to us now? Are people sitting there thinking “dear god, is she still banging on about her dead husband?” I think back to the previous ones I’ve held and wonder if I asked for help more or if people offered their help more freely? Probably a combination of the two in all honesty. Lives move on. People are busy. With all I have going on, I just have to get things done when I can. And if I’m honest, there is something about this event that I feel even more responsible for. It feels even more personal. It’s not just a fundraising event in memory of my late husband. It’s also in memory of our marriage and everything we had. 

I look at the current confirmed attendee list. It’s a very different list to the guest list for our wedding. People attending who never even met him. People not attending who were a huge part of his life and our married life. A sign of how times change. How lives move on. Again. I’ve wondered what the invite list would have looked like had we been hosting a 20th wedding anniversary party together. I’ll never know, but this is a prime example of something that affects me as a widow, and me alone. It comes back to that sentiment of being on my own. In so many ways, I am with my grief. I don’t for one second underestimate the impact of my late husband’s death on others, but how many other people are still having their day to day lives and routines impacted by it? How many others live with so many pertinent dates and reminders that only affect them? Who else said the words “til death do us part” only to have that become a reality far sooner than it should have been?

Yet as I have so many times since 2020, I can’t let myself dwell on thoughts like this. They don’t do me any favours. I had my moment last week. I didn’t ignore it or try to battle through it. I gave myself permission to feel how I was feeling. I joined a virtual Widowed and Young meeting to just vent with others who get it. It’s the first time for a while I’ve done that, be a member, be a widow and admit that this life is crap at times. I don’t have a bad life by any stretch of the imagination, but it is hard. And I knew that once I’d said out loud how I was feeling, I’d feel better. That’s exactly what happened. 

So, for now, I’m going to focus on the positives. I’m going to look for the little glimmers. The memories of my hen do this weekend 20 years ago. The memories of my marriage. All we achieved during those 14 years. 

The greatest achievement of all being our daughter. When I’ve had my moments questioning myself lately, she’s been the one to rationalise and talk sense into me. The one reminding me to focus on what we will achieve in two weeks to celebrate him and all that we had. All the donations made in his memory and the amount of money we’ve raised to help others in the last five years. 

But above all else. She is the best reminder I have of the future. Because whatever my future entails, whatever I chose to do with it, however I choose to manage being on my own, the parenting and love we both gave her; and I’ve continued to do; has led her to the point of being able to plan her future and what comes next. She has so many exciting tomorrows ahead of her. And I hope I do too. As she herself sang in Les Misérables the other week: 

“It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes.”

 

Hope is everything

Various pictures of the Charlesworth family to promote Children’s Grief Awareness Week

Two years ago, to mark Children’s Grief Awareness Week, I wrote a blog because the phrase “children are resilient” had been playing heavily on my mind. I felt it was clouding our view of how children who have been bereaved are treated. One of the points I raised that seemed to resonate the most with people was this: Needing help doesn’t mean she’s not resilient, that she’s mad, that she can’t cope or that she’s weird. It just means she’s human and vulnerable.

A lot has happened since I wrote that blog, but as I sit here today, on the first day of Children’s Grief Awareness Week 2024, there’s a new thought that is playing heavily on my mind. The fact that my daughter won’t ever really remember a life without grief in it. She won’t ever really remember her mum when she wasn’t grieving. Imagine that. Growing up with grief being part of your everyday life. I hesitate to use the word normal, because that is different for all of us, but ultimately grief, trauma and sadness are part of my daughter’s normal and have been since she was 10 years old. It breaks my heart beyond all belief that her innocence and childhood were snatched from her so cruelly.

Yet when I started thinking about this a bit more, I started thinking about the theme of this awareness week. #BuildingHope. Hope is probably the most pertinent word in my family. It’s the word I have tattooed on my wrist in my late husband’s handwriting. It’s part of my daughter’s name. And the fact that this grief awareness week begins on 18th November is also something that feels pertinent for me. 18th November 1993 is the date that I first really became aware of death and grief. These two things put together are why I knew I needed to write.

I’ve never really spoken about the fact that I too went through grief as a child. Mainly because in 1993, mental health or speaking about your emotions and feelings weren’t really considered. And certainly not for a child. But more than that. As the years have gone by, I have never really felt it was my story to tell. Yes, my family and friends at the time knew about it. It crops up in conversation with people to this day at times. But I haven’t publicly talked about it. I’ve had numerous different bouts of counselling over the years, but it’s never been a topic of discussion, there’s always been what I’ve felt are more pressing things to talk about. Yet recently I’ve stopped to think about how that day itself, the immediate aftermath and the bereavement I went through, haunts me and continues to affect me to this day. I suspect it always will. It’s a part of who I am. Because it is a part of my story. Whether I talk about it publicly or not.

It almost feels a bizarre coincidence in a way that both mine and my daughter’s first real memory and experience of death happened in what were fundamentally national tragedies. That we’ve both had to deal with death against a backdrop of news headlines and TV images. Such completely and utterly different circumstances, but the similarities are there, nonetheless. I was 12 years old. She was 10 years old. Having to adjust to a new reality without someone they loved in it. Becoming acutely aware from a young age that death can happen to anyone. It’s not just old people who die. Being aware of your own mortality before you’re even a teenager. It’s a lot to have to come to terms with.

I think this is what has led me to the realisation about my daughter having grief in her life forever. And I also think this is part of why I have so vehemently pushed her to talk about her grief. To have counselling. To try to help her process and make sense of the trauma she went through. The secondary losses she has faced. The future she faces growing up without her father. I want to do all I can to help her manage this unfathomable loss. To have it be a part of her story but not her whole story. To help her grow around it.

Whenever I talk about her and what she’s faced in my blogs, I always, always check she is comfortable with what I’m going to write. Because ultimately her experience is her story. There are some things which are just too personal to both of us to ever share. I won’t talk about them. I respect her views. Yet when I spoke about this blog, I could see the progress she’s made since that blog two years ago. The little bits of her life she is more comfortable for me to talk about now.

Shortly after I wrote my blog in 2022, my daughter and I joined Winston’s Wish Ambassador Molly for an Instagram Live together with Grace Lee, Director of Marketing and Communications for Winston’s Wish. The concept was for young people to talk directly and openly about their bereavements and grief. It was a classic case of Instagram vs. reality, in the 10 minutes before we went live, my daughter and I had some minor disagreements, she was stroppy with me, I was conscious of time so was blunt back and then the second we went live we switched on the consummate professional act! But as I sat there listening to Molly and then my own daughter, I was struck by just how astute they both were and how much they understood the impact that their bereavements had had on them. My daughter said things about grief that I’d never heard her say before. There were some real lump in the throat moments for me. I’d have never anticipated quite what was going to come our way just a few months later.

Because it was in February 2023 that I took my daughter to our doctor to get her referred for counselling. Her grief had manifested itself into anxiety. And it was becoming more and more difficult to manage. I’d had an inkling that this might happen the day of her great-grandmother’s funeral in January 2022, it was at the same crematorium as her dad’s funeral, she had to face all his family and by the time we got to the evening, she was shaking on the bathroom floor and vomiting. She couldn’t go back to school the next day. The anxiety and the stress that day caused for her was simply too much for her to deal with. It was another loss for her to have to process.

But by 2023, her anxiety had got to the point where she couldn’t leave the house in the morning for school without eight different alarms. Each of which to tell her it was time to do something else, be that go in the bathroom, get dressed or have breakfast. It felt unsustainable. Any change to that routine, a few minutes lost here and there was enough to cause a meltdown. There were days she didn’t even make it into school. She simply couldn’t process change. Everything had to be regimented. I watched as she withdrew into herself more. We argued more because I couldn’t really understand what she was going through. Because I didn’t understand just how crippling her anxiety had become. Just how hard her life was. Until she started her counselling, all I could do was love her and watch her suffer as she tried to make sense in her mind of why she was like this. As she tried to answer the question she posed herself “why am I like this?” It was, quite simply, heartbreaking to watch.

She was nervous about the counselling. She didn’t really know what she’d say. But as I sat on the stairs and listened to her first session, I could hear her talking. I was astonished quite how much the counsellor got her to say. After that I didn’t listen to her sessions, they were personal to her and I knew if there was a major concern, the counsellor would contact me. But for someone who was such a sceptic, these sessions helped her. Even she would admit this. Just last week, she commented on how she only has one alarm now and it goes off 35 minutes later than it did last year. This might sound small to someone who has never experienced anxiety, but to her it’s massive.

And while a lot of her anxiety has dissipated, it is still there. I don’t doubt it always will be to an extent. It’s part of her grief. We have found ways to help her manage it, but if things come at her left field, they do still cause her to feel anxious or to panic. She will openly admit she has trust issues. She struggles to let people in. She has abandonment issues. I don’t doubt that as she gets older, she will need therapy again. Because at different points in her life, she is going to need help to process her emotions. It’s a fact of her life.

And she’s also had to live with my grief being a fact of her life for the last four years. The fact I find myself crying anywhere, a supermarket, the theatre, in the car, the cinema… the list is endless. We recently went to see Paddington in Peru (I cried!) and on the drive home, we saw an ambulance with its blue lights on. No siren, just lights on. My daughter started making the sound of a siren, I laughed and said, “why are you being an ambulance?” To which she simply said “I know you don’t like seeing the blue lights without the sirens. It’s hard for you so I thought I’d add them.” Deep breath moment for me. The realisation that things like that are on her mind. How acutely aware she is of how I feel and my triggers. Three years ago, she was interviewed as part of a study on childhood bereavement, they asked her how her mum was coping. “She keeps herself busy and doesn’t sit still, because if she stops, she’ll have to think about what’s happened to us and she doesn’t want to do that.” Another deep breath moment. Because there are times her emotional intelligence is off the scale. But this also breaks my heart. She shouldn’t have had to become this astute. She shouldn’t have had to live with grief becoming a part of her world at such a young age that she’s been able to gain this understanding.

Her understanding, vulnerability and honesty are just some of her qualities that I am most proud of. I do believe she’s growing up with an empathy that she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t experienced the loss of her father and watched her mother grieving. She knows this herself. Towards the end of last year, she and I had a conversation in what is known as the “Jac McDonald’s” (mainly because this is where we ate before going to see Jac Yarrow on more than one occasion.) And while I’d rather not be having a deep and meaningful over a Big Mac, sometimes you just have to go with the flow of the conversation. She told me that she wouldn’t necessarily change what has happened to her. I was quizzical over this but the way she responded again just made me so proud. Her rationale was that she likes the person she is now, and she doesn’t know if she would be this person if she hadn’t gone through everything she has. Another deep breath moment for me. There is no real response to that. Without question, she will never cease to amaze me with how she has approached everything and the way she now reflects on her life.

Recently she and a friend went to their first gig without a parent. No way would she have been able to do this last year. And while I was a tad neurotic, when I got the text message from her to tell me they’d found their seats, had bought some merchandise and what time they’d worked out they’d need to go to the toilet before the main act, I breathed a sigh of relief. She’s got this was my overarching feeling. And as her friend’s mum and I waited in the venue for the gig to finish, I listened to the lyrics of one of the songs. The words that Henry Moodie sang felt like the perfect way to sum up my daughter’s response to grief and anxiety:

  • I’ve learned to live with my anxieties
  • ‘Cause I’ve got some bad emotions
  • It’s just a part of life, it doesn’t mean I’m broken
  • At the worst of times, I tell myself to breathe
  • Count to three, wait and see that I’ll be okay
  • ‘Cause I’ve got some bad emotions
  • Took a minute, but I’m finding ways of coping.

Anyone who is parenting a child who is bereaved wants to make it better for them. Anyone who has experienced childhood bereavement wants to feel better. Wonders when the grief and the pain might go away. Yet, as I’ve come to realise it doesn’t ever go away. But by talking about it and hopefully breaking some taboos, we can become more understanding of the impact, find techniques for coping and learn ways to support.

#BuildingHope is this year’s theme, and I cannot think of anything that is more fitting. It sounds clichéd. It sounds trite. But speaking as a mother who has watched her child ride the grief rollercoaster these last four years, I do truly believe that building and offering hope to those also experiencing this is one of the most powerful things we can do. 

Quite simply. Hope is everything.

Finding your WAY

Various photos from the Widowed and Young AGM 2024

It’s been a few months since I last wrote a blog. Life has been busy lately, we’ve had a fab summer and while I have been busy writing, it’s been for something completely different to my blog. And I always said I’d only write when I had something to say, I never had the intention of blogging just for the sake of it.

But a lot has been whirring in my mind since last weekend. You see, last weekend was the 2024 Widowed and Young AGM. This was the third AGM I have attended and once again, I trekked across the country to be there, this time to Crewe. It’s always a bit daunting getting in the car and driving quite a way by yourself, Mr C was always the one out of the two of us who did most of the driving, but there is always something reassuring about knowing you’re driving to spend the weekend with people who “get it.”

Yet, this was the first AGM where I headed off feeling slightly nervous about it. You see, I knew that Emma, my comfort blanket at these events wasn’t going to be able to make it until late on the Friday evening. So, I was going to have to go to the Volunteer’s Meeting and dinner without her. It might sound odd, I’ve been volunteering and an Ambassador for WAY for three and a half years now, have met numerous other volunteers and members of WAY at various events, but that thought of walking into a room by myself still feels me with a little bit of dread. I’m still not really used to being on my own.

Traffic delays meant I was slightly late to the Volunteer’s Meeting. Fortunately, Emma was on hand for me to ring to ask her to let them know! But being late also meant that I didn’t have a chance to get nervous and scared about walking in on my own, the meeting had already started when I arrived and so I just had to thrown myself into it and the initial icebreaker challenge. Within moments, I was wondering why I’d been feeling nervous. There were familiar faces for me to talk to and also new faces who I quickly got to know. It’s one of the weirdest situations really, we’re only in that room together because of one commonality, we have all experienced the loss of a partner before our 51st birthday yet somehow that almost feels secondary once you start talking to others. My team won one of the other challenges and we were presented with a bag of Heroes, an apt prize if I ever saw one! I then joined other members for a history tour of Crewe Hall Hotel and Spa, the hotel we were staying in, a really beautiful and fascinating place and then I trundled back to my room to get ready for dinner.

Once again, the nerves kicked in. Dinner was at 8pm and while there were messages on the Facebook page about meeting for a drink earlier, I started feeling apprehensive again. What if I went down and wouldn’t have anyone to talk to? What if people I didn’t know started to talk to me about my widowhood experience, did I really want to talk about it? What if, what if, what if…? The question that we really shouldn’t ask ourselves, but we always do. Worst case scenario planning, and I am very, very good at it! I snuck into dinner just before 8pm, not revealing to anyone the feelings I was having and instantly started talking to people. Again, some I’d met before but others I hadn’t. Conversation was easy and free flowing. If I’m honest, I knew it would be and I was berating myself in my head for the fears I’d been having leading up to it.

Emma had messaged to tell me the time she would be arriving and despite feeling tired, I knew I needed to wait up to see her. I suspected both of us would need the reassuring hug from each other, her because of the long drive and to help quell a number of anxieties she was feeling, me because I was also experiencing anxieties and just wanted a hug from someone who knows me well. I think we both clung on a little bit too tight when she did arrive. But that’s the power of connection through tragedy, sometimes you don’t even need to say how you’re feeling for someone else to just instinctively know.

The following morning was the AGM itself. A chance for us to learn more about the work of the charity over the previous year and plans going forward. But it always kicks off with an icebreaker challenge, there was a lot at stake with this one, I’d been on the winning table in 2023 and felt I had a title to protect! This year we needed to build the tallest swan, the swan being synonymous with WAY. There were other people on our table who had been on the same table and therefore victorious last year, but there were also some people who were new faces. Straight away we all got to work and after some potentially contentious entries, I’m delighted to report that my table was once again victorious. The winning sashes were instantly put on. The prosecco opened a short while later (it was early after all). The smiles and the laughter evident for all to see.

That continued throughout the day. Yes. There were some challenging moments. Hearing from a speaker who is also a member of WAY and hearing her story can’t help but make you reflect on your own experience and how you’ve come to be in a room full of people who have faced similar heartbreak. But as we all went off to the breakout sessions, me experiencing my first Soundbath and then candle making, I couldn’t help but think about just how important weekends and occasions like this have become to me.

Those thoughts continued as we headed to the spa for a swim and time in the sauna and steam room. Emma and I chatting and putting the world to rights. Catching up with others and making plans for the evening dinner dance. It was just so ridiculously easy and comfortable. As we headed to dinner, posh frock on (any excuse to wear a posh frock!) I knew I’d be in for a fab evening. I was proven right. I was once again victorious in a game of Heads and Tails and another box of Heroes came my way. I introduced someone I had met the day before and someone I had met last year to Tequila Rose, I’m nothing if not generous. We tried to see how many of us we could squeeze into a Photo Booth to take a photo of the victorious winning icebreaker challenge table (the answer is eight people). Some of us crying with laughter at the most ridiculous and surreal conversations we were having. Some of us crying because the emotion had got a bit much being relatively new to WAY and widowhood. I instinctively went over and gave a hug to someone because I could just see that they needed it and if I’ve learnt anything, it’s just how powerful a hug can be at the right time. Some of us catching up and chatting, I spent a lot of time talking to someone I had met last year, we’ve continued to message over the past year but despite the fact we’ve now only seen each other twice in a year, it felt so normal and like old friends talking. At one point I and another volunteer were asked how long we’d known each other, I looked at my watch, did the maths and responded “about 29 hours” to be promptly told that it was as though we’d known each other a lot longer than that. I think a lot of that came down to the very warped sense of humour we both have!

And I noticed that while I was having these conversations, I wasn’t as solely reliant on Emma as I had been in previous years. Yes, I was so relieved to have my comfort blanket back and to know she was there, but we both were having conversations with others and finding our way. Together but also on our own. As I’ve had to do with the rest of my life since becoming eligible to join WAY almost four and a half years ago. Emma runs courses and is passionate about talking about growing around your grief, and I truly believe that this is what so many of us in the room have done or are in the process of doing. It’s different timing for everyone, no grief journey is the same, but we are all doing it. Anyone walking past that room and seeing the smiles, laughter and dancing wouldn’t have had a clue behind the heartbreaking reason that has brought us all together. They’d have just seen a group of people having a good evening. And after all the heartbreak and tears we’ve experienced, that can only be a good thing.

As we checked out of the hotel the next morning, I knew there was one more than I needed to do before I headed home. I needed to brave doing something else on my own. Finding my way to revisit a special place. Just me. Not with Emma or my WAY friends. Not my family. Just me. I was a short drive away from the castle that my nan spent five years living in while she was evacuated. The last time I visited it my family were all together. My grandad and my late husband were still alive. Alzheimer’s hadn’t taken hold of my nan. As I walked around taking photos and videos to show her when I next see her, I couldn’t help but think about how much my life has changed since that last visit. I sat on my own, had a coffee, did some writing and just spent time as me, as Emma.

It hit me that the same day four and half years ago was the day that Mr C experienced his first symptom of COVID-19. The tears fell and I found myself crying for a lot of the journey home. For what I’ve lost. The pain I’ve gone through. The hurt that has come into my life. But I also cried for the good in my life. The people who are only in it because of what I’ve gone through. Everything my daughter and I have been able to achieve in the face of such adversity. The hope we have for the future. The plans we have. It’s the most bittersweet of situations. I’d give everything I have for my late husband to still be here, but I know that’s impossible. And so, I just have to focus on what I do have.

Those of us who formed a close bond last weekend are now part of a WhatsApp group. It’s been quite active this week. Plans being made. Support being given. Conversations that one might say are classic examples of levity. I’ve had to find a new life and a new way since the pandemic turned my world upside down in 2020, but I just know that there is still a future for me, good times ahead and new friends to be made. I owe a lot of that to WAY. It’s one of the reasons my latest fundraising is raising money for the charity. It’s my way of both showcasing Mr C’s photography while also giving back to the charity that has done so much for me.

Because what WAY has shown me most of all is that it is possible to find your way in this new life I’ve found myself in and that you can go on. It’s why I intend to live my life to the full as the best way of honouring my late husband. As the quote on the candle I made last weekend from Elvis Presley says “What’s the good of reaching 90, if you waste 89?”  

Happy birthday to me…?

I’m sure birthdays are coming round quicker the older I get. But hey. Getting older isn’t a guarantee, is it? And of all the days to remind me of that, it’s my birthday…

You see, for close to 20 years I’d joked that my birthday was jinxed. I joked that I was never going to start a new decade again. That I was going to just be 39+1, 39+2 etc, etc… Because my birthdays when I turned 20 and 30 hadn’t been easy. My 20th birthday was spent in St Bart’s Hospital with Mr C having his first chemotherapy session. My 30th birthday was spent feeling ill after I got food poisoning. We also had no plans to celebrate because Mr C had been made redundant a few months before, hadn’t been able to secure a new job and I had just returned to work from maternity leave so things were a little tight. As you can imagine, I was approaching my 40th with a sense of trepidation.

What I was unprepared for was the carnage that my 39th birthday would bring. To the point I actually queried whether I’d got confused and I was turning 40 that day instead. It’s taken me three years to sit down and really be able to think about that day. About just what it was like dialling 999 in the early hours of my birthday, the complete juxtaposition of the day and the lasting impact it’s had on me.

I’m not entirely sure what time I rang for an ambulance now, but it was somewhere between 3am and 4am. It’s all such a blur. I don’t function particularly well on disturbed or lack of sleep at the best of times, let alone when my world is imploding. I do remember initially thinking that I’d just ring MedOcc rather than 999, they were busy after all and I didn’t want to be a bother, but something instinctively changed in me as I walked down the stairs to turn my phone on to get the number for MedOcc. That was the last night I turned my phone off before I went to bed. I don’t think there’ll ever come a time when I’m comfortable to turn it off overnight again. As I spoke to the incredibly calm 999 call handler, the enormity of what was happening just hit me. We were living in the middle of a pandemic, my husband was most likely suffering from COVID-19, the virus we didn’t really know a lot about, nobody could come into our house to help us and our daughter had woken to chaos, hearing her father struggling for breath and her mother just trying to do the best she could in those circumstances. I remember running up and down the stairs in my PJs, fluffy dressing gown and alicorn slippers (a sight to behold, I’m sure you’d agree!) trying to keep Miss C calm and reassure Mr C as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. It took what felt like forever. How long it really was, again, I don’t know.

And as the paramedics started to tend to him, the nervous energy kicked in. I joked with him and them that this was the most elaborate way of getting out of buying me a birthday card that I’d ever come across. That this was now the second birthday of mine that I’d be remembering for him being ill. Little did I know what was about to happen. That gut instinct of mine that had made me call for an ambulance, was proven to be right. Because if those paramedics hadn’t been there and given him oxygen, I’m 99% certain he’d have died at home. I won’t ever forget what I witnessed. The severity of the situation was rapidly becoming more and more apparent. I didn’t understand. He’d been stood in the bathroom shaving six hours before. How the hell could this be happening? But it really, really was. They told me they needed to take him to hospital to get checked over and to call two hours later. This would be ok. They’d just do those checks and then I’d go and get him. He walked down the stairs to the ambulance and that was to be the last time we ever saw him in person. This was around 4:30am. As he got into the ambulance, I made my daughter shout that she loved him. I needed both him and her to have that as a lasting memory.

I was too wired to go back to sleep. Miss C was too wired to go back to sleep. So, we did what all sensible people would do. Downloaded Disney+ and watched movies. Our world was imploding so we turned to Disney. Escapism. Fantasy. And a way of putting off the inevitable. I decided not to ring people at that point because I didn’t have any answers and didn’t really know what I’d say. So, at 6:30am I rang A&E as I’d been told to do and learnt that he’d been taken to Intensive Care, sedated and ventilated. Hmmmm. This wasn’t the message I was meant to be being given, I honestly and genuinely thought they’d tell me to go and pick him up. But I knew in that moment that I’d have to start making calls. But how? What was I meant to say? I just sat there in shock for a bit longer. I just sat there staring at my phone willing this nightmare to not be happening.

And then the messages started, because no-one other than my mum and stepdad knew what had happened. That was only because I’d needed someone to talk to Miss C on the phone while I was with the paramedics. Messages such as “Happy birthday! Hope you enjoy it despite the strange circumstances”, “Happy birthday, hope Charlie is feeling better today” were coming through. I just stared at them inanely. Right. It was time to put the big girl pants on and start telling people. I think I waited until 7am though, I needed to process what I’d been told and I also thought 7am felt a more appropriate time to ring people, before that was too early. It’s astonishing what goes through your mind in times of chaos.

My sister was one of the first people I rang, I vividly remember saying to her amongst the sobs “I’m scared, I’m just so, so scared.” I gave her a list of people to tell because I couldn’t face doing all these calls. I remember talking to one of Mr C’s sisters who told me the plan her and her sister had come up with for Miss C if I fell ill too. I phoned work, I phoned a couple of other friends and other people I simply messaged. I’m sure most of these calls and messages were incoherent. It’s why I assigned different people the tasks of telling other friends and family. I didn’t really know what I was doing. All the while, the birthday messages were still coming. Deliveries were arriving. It was, quite simply, overwhelming. I couldn’t deal with it. Shock. Hope. Worry. Positivity. That was to be the first day of me becoming so completely reliant on my phone as my lifeline.

Somehow, we made it through the day. The birthday messages were still coming. The Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn messages were mounting. I had a decision to make. Ignore them, be polite and say thank you to people or admit what was happening to us. I chose the latter. I made a very conscious decision on that day to use social media to start telling our story and use it as a way of getting support. It was the best decision I ever made. The virtual support I got at a time when I couldn’t get physical support meant so very, very much. It always will.

And then as we headed into the evening, in classic Miss C style, she pointed out I hadn’t opened any cards or presents. Her view was that it was still my birthday and I needed to do it. In that moment, my child probably saved my birthday forever more. Because she reminded me that life goes on, irrespective of what else is happening. She found 39 candles (don’t ask me why we had so many!) and put them on a cake. She arranged for my mum, stepdad, sister and nieces to video call me and sing Happy Birthday. We smiled. Against all odds, we smiled. The rest of that day and the next few weeks is, as they say, history…

Fast forward a year. I turned 40 on the first anniversary of Mr C being admitted. I was unsure how this was this going to go. I knew people would be so aware of this. What felt like an unfathomable day actually turned out be a good day. Family, friends and colleagues all made that extra bit of effort for me. I was so humbled. Lockdown restrictions lifted slightly the day before and so I was allowed visitors in my garden. It was a day tinged with sadness I have to admit, but I smiled on the day. I really did. After all, life begins at 40…

Fast forward another year. I had my delayed 80s themed 40th party and the next day my heart felt full for the first time in a long time. Yet, my birthday did fall during the time I wasn’t working. I arranged to meet my sister for a spot of shopping and lunch. I did this. And then in the biggest twist of fate, I ended up having to go to the hospital Mr C had been admitted to two years to the day before. Two years prior, it was the only place I wanted to be. That day it was the only place I didn’t want to be. I’m not ashamed to say that as I pulled into the car park, I broke down. How was this happening again on my birthday? Fortunately, it wasn’t for anywhere near as serious as the reasons of 2020 and the amazing NHS once again took brilliant care of my family. But still. That night however, I ended up having an unplanned curry with my family. The following night I went for dinner with one of my oldest friends and then did a quiz with a number of other people. In amongst the chaos, smiles and happiness were possible. Just like my child showed me was possible in 2020.

And now we land at today. This is 42. Not been the easiest week getting to today, but I went to the office for the first time on my birthday since 2018. For most people this would seem like something dull to do; I have friends who take the day off on their birthday; but for me, it felt like a hurdle that I needed to overcome. I needed to do something for me. To be around people on this day. I went for lunch with a lovely colleague. The team bought me sweet treats. I had human connection. I’m going out for dinner with my daughter this evening. All things that remind me that life moves forward and things I desperately wanted and would have begged to be able to do three years ago.

So. Happy Birthday to me. How do I feel about my birthday now? Honestly? It’s the weirdest day in the world for me. The impact of what happened on 30 March 2020 will never, ever leave me. It’s simply not possible for it to. Because each year I turn older, I can’t help but be reminded that Mr C doesn’t. Because while he didn’t die on my birthday, that day was without question the beginning of the end. No two ways about it. I never spoke to him again. I’ve never been wished by him or wished him a Happy Birthday again. That messes with my head. I have no doubt that it always, always will. I am already dreading 2026 and 2027. I should never be the same age as him, I should never be older than him. But God willing, I will. And those two days are going to sting a little bit.

But those two days will also be a reminder that I am still living. Because my daughter reminded me of that in 2020 and it’s something that I continue to remember, and be thankful for, to this day. It’s a real cliché, but growing old really is a privilege. Life is for living and making the most of all opportunities. It’s what my late husband did and three years since I last heard his voice, I realise that, quite frankly, it’s exactly what I intend to, and need to do too.

Children are resilient

Family photos of The Charlesworth Family

I want to start this by saying I’m no expert on grief. I’m no expert on bereavement. I’m no expert on childhood bereavement. But what I am an expert on is my child. My child who, at the age of 10, watched as her beloved father grew steadily weaker and more ill because of COVID-19. Who watched as her father walked out of our house to an ambulance accompanied by three paramedics. Who then never physically saw him again. Just think about that for a moment. It’s not fiction. It’s real. This is what happened to my beautiful, clever, amazing 10-year-old.

One of the very first things that was said to me in amongst all this carnage was “children are resilient.” It was said in a way to make me feel better, to make me feel that she would be ok despite our world crumbling around us. It wasn’t meant with any malice at all, because fundamentally children are resilient in a way that is different to adults. They are far more black and white, they are far more pragmatic, they see the world in a different way to us. But over the last two and a half years, this phrase has come back to haunt me time and time again. Because I can’t help but wonder if we are actually doing children a disservice by using this phrase and immediately telling them and their families how resilient they are. Yes, they might be, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t suffer, that they don’t feel pain, that their lives aren’t ridiculously changed forever, that they aren’t ridiculously changed forever. And quite simply, this is what has happened to my daughter.

She was a relatively carefree 10-year-old when the pandemic came into our lives. She was never meant to have been an only child, but after Mr C’s cancer we didn’t even know if we’d be able to have a child, and then after my miscarriage, we decided to just be thankful for the child we did have and that was that. I’ve wondered on more than one occasion how different her experience of bereavement and grief would have been had she had a sibling to share the pain and the loss with. It’s one of those “what if” questions that should never be asked and will never be answered.

And while I say carefree, she hadn’t always had it easy. She’d had to watch me hit rock bottom at the age of eight. She’d had to watch my nan’s health decline due to Alzheimer’s from the age of six (just six weeks before the diagnosis, she’d still been having sleepovers with my nan and baking cakes). She’d seen the usual marital arguments that happen. But, overall, she didn’t really have that much to worry about in her life. We tried to make as many memories with her as possible, we knew that she would only be a child for so long and that we needed to make the most of our time with her. I will be beyond grateful for the rest of my life that we took this approach and have a wealth of memories and photos to look back on.

But as the pandemic seemed to grow in its severity, the biggest worry and challenge I thought she was going to face was that of isolation, of not being at school, of not being able to go to dance lessons, of not seeing her friends and just being stuck with two adults in the house. But I didn’t worry too much, because children are resilient… Little did I know what she was actually going to face. I will never, ever forget the early hours of 30 March 2020 when she woke up to hear her father struggling for breath, me making a 999 call and seeing the utter panic and desperation I felt. Yes, I tried to say calm for her but in that moment I’m sure she saw it. She knew. And then, in a reality that will forever pain me, I had to leave her on her own when the paramedics arrived because they needed me. My 10-year-old had to sit on her own in our lounge, whilst knowing that upstairs people were trying to save her father and the only comfort she could get was via my mum on the phone because no-one could come in our house. But that’s ok right? Because children are resilient.

The next three weeks sort of passed in a blur. There were days we didn’t make it out of our PJs. There were days we’d have cake for breakfast and brownies for lunch. There was the day a week before he died when I had to sit her down and tell her that he was very poorly (understatement of the year) and might never come home. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” I remember saying to her. “Yes, you’re saying daddy might die” was her response. Pragmatic. Real. She was bloody amazing. And then the Skype calls came. I didn’t do the first one with her because I wasn’t sure what he’d look like but having done that one, I knew she’d be ok seeing him. Each day I would ask if she wanted to talk to daddy and her response was always “well, I’ll talk to him today because he’s here today isn’t he and might not be tomorrow.” I told this story when I was on a panel at the UK Commission on Bereavement “Bereavement is everyone’s business” report launch and you could hear a pin drop. I saw members of the audience crying. It hit me then. Just how much I’ve come to accept what we went through because we were living it. How I’ve probably downplayed our experience because it was ours. And yet when other people hear it, they consider it heart-breaking.

But. The attitude and philosophy that my daughter adopted during that final week kept me going, because if she could do it, then so could I. And then the fateful day came. The call came. Hope had gone. He was going to die. She was actually about to become a child whose father had died. My biggest fear had been realised. Again, we did a Skype call and this was our chance to say goodbye. I can still remember her saying to him “I’ve not really got anything else to say to you now, I haven’t done much, I’ll go talk to nana and come back in a bit” (my mum was sat on our driveway at the time). Because let’s face it. Children are resilient. This was just something else she was dealing with.

And let’s be honest. She didn’t really have a choice but to deal with it. We were living in the middle of a global pandemic. Her father had died. I couldn’t make this any better for her. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t real. Both of us had to deal with it. But unlike me, she didn’t cry. For weeks, if not months, she didn’t cry. She queried this with me because she didn’t understand why not. “Everyone grieves differently, please don’t worry about it” was my reply. It was all I had. The day of the funeral, she didn’t cry. She stood in the crematorium, did a reading with me, and didn’t cry. Shock. That’s what she was experiencing. Shock. I didn’t really realise it at the time, but like I say I’m an expert on my child and now I can say she was in shock. She was in shock for such a very long time. My amazingly brilliant, resilient child had experienced pain that no child should ever experience. She not only experienced loss, but went on to experience isolation, a lack of physical contact, her mother falling apart and secondary losses. Yet all the while people kept telling me that she’d be ok. Because children are resilient.

What I hadn’t really realised at the time and didn’t really realise until this year is how she aged overnight. Not just mentally, but physically. Her eyes took on a sudden weariness. She looked older. Yes, partly because she was growing up, but also partly because of the trauma she went through. And I realised this in the simplest of ways this year. We went to Florida for three weeks; it was our treat to ourselves after the heartache we’d gone through. We did a day trip out of the parks one day and she asked me for a cuddly toy as a memory, before then I couldn’t tell you the last time she asked for one. On the coach back to the hotel, she cuddled that toy. I snapped a photo and sent it to my sister. “She looks so young” was her response. And that was it. That was the moment I saw it. Our three weeks in Florida enabled my daughter to be a child again, to not have a care in the world and ultimately, to regress. She got back a little bit of her childhood on that holiday. I cried on the plane on the way home, partly because I felt I was leaving Mr C there but also because I felt I’d got my little girl back. She had been given the space and ability to be a child again. It was a momentous feeling. I wanted to keep her like this forever.

But back to reality we came. She said something to me a couple of weeks later after a difficult few days and it just winded me. “People don’t ask me how I am anymore, it’s been over two years, I’m supposed to be ok with it now aren’t I?” Because time is meant to be a healer, isn’t it? But sadly, the misconception that exists because we’re “trained” to believe that children are resilient is that they don’t suffer for any length of time. That they just bounce back from whatever comes their way. That they don’t experience pain in the same way. That grief doesn’t affect them. Without question it does. And it’s something that will be a part of them forever. I wonder how we can change that, because in my opinion it needs to be changed. Unless you’ve witnessed it first-hand, you have no real idea of what grief, trauma and pain can do to a child.

I won’t talk about all the ways I can see that she’s been affected and what it’s like for her because that’s her story to tell and I don’t want to divulge it. Maybe one day, but not now. Not while she’s living it. But what I can tell you as her mother is that she is 100% affected by her loss. That she is 100% struggling to work through and process what has happened to her. Losing her hero. Losing her protector. Losing one half of her history. And quite simply, why wouldn’t she be? It doesn’t mean she’s not resilient, it just means she’s human. It just means that she’s experienced one of the most awful things that she possibly could, and she needs to be allowed time and space to work through it. She needs love and care. She needs people to ask her how she is. She needs to talk about her dad. She needs to know that all of how she is feeling is ok.

And interestingly enough, from my perspective, it is this that I believe will build her resilience and help her as she goes through the teenage years and adulthood. Needing help doesn’t mean she’s not resilient, that she’s mad, that she can’t cope or that she’s weird. It just means she’s human and vulnerable. And I will be there with her on every step of this journey. I am so grateful for the child bereavement charities that I’ve spoken to who have given me guidance, who have supported her and will continue to support her.

But most of all, as her mother, I couldn’t be prouder of her for the way she has responded over the last couple of years. It’s not been easy; I’d be lying if I said it had. But I hope that she’ll retain the human and vulnerable elements to her as she gets older, because they’ll be two of the most valuable qualities she’ll ever possess. I hope that her experience doesn’t define her but instead helps shape her. To help her go into adulthood retaining that realistic and pragmatic view on the world. To truly understand that being resilient doesn’t mean that you don’t find things hard. That you don’t suffer. That it’s ok to need help now and then. And without question, I know that if she takes this into adulthood, it’s something that her dad would be very proud of her for doing too.