I thought it would be a good idea, as its National Grief Awareness Week (2-8 Dec) to share my grief story in the hope that it helps others just starting out on this incredibly difficult journey. I also find it quite cathartic to get my thoughts out onto the page. I am now an avid journal writer, which has become one of many new habits I have formed to help me process my feelings.
I will never forget that night, it will be forever etched on my brain, that knock at the door at 3am on a cold, wet, stormy night in March. I answered the door to 2 police officers in florescent yellow jackets. After confirming who I was, they sat me down on my sofa and told me the news any single one of us would always dread to hear, “Thomas has been involved in a road traffic collision” and “we are so sorry to have to tell you he has passed away.” My instant thought was I was in the middle of my worst nightmare, this was a bad dream and I will wake up in a minute. But no…it was really happening. I felt numb. Sick. I almost passed out. I was lost for words but all that came out was “No, you’ve got to be joking!” “This can not be really happening!” “He has a 3 year old daughter, so much life left ahead of him!”.
Sadly this was not a bad dream or a nightmare it was real and from that morning onwards mine and my 3 year old daughter Heidi’s lives have been completely turned upside. My heart was smashed into a million pieces and was breaking twice over, not only had I lost my husband, my daughter was going to grow up without a father. I had no clue what that was like and I was the person that was going to have to help her through that. I never envisaged being thrown into single parenthood like this. Who does?
It was 4am, still sat on my sofa in complete disbelief, at this point I was totally alone as the two police officers had left to go and tell Thomas’ parents the horrific news. I was trying to get hold of a family member waking them up by phoning them several times. My sister was the first to answer her phone and I couldn’t believe the words that I was having to say to her “You need to come, Tom is dead!”. She was in as much shock and disbelief as me and I explained what the police has told me about the accident. She got a friend to sit with her daughter and collected my mum and they made their way to me.
As I waited for my mum and my sister to arrive at my house, I sat on the phone to my Dad who lives down in London. As I sat here in complete disbelief as to what was happening around me, I the had the sickening realisation that my beautiful 3 year old daughter was still sleeping upstairs blissfully unaware what was happening downstairs and what lay ahead for her future.
These 2 pictures were from our family holiday to Florida in October 2019. I am so glad we have these wonderful memories for us all to cherish but especially for Heidi to remember her Daddy.
I felt nausea like I had never experienced before at the thought of having to tell my innocent little girl that she was never going to see her Daddy again. How would I do that? What would I say? Will she understand? She’s 3. This shouldn’t be happening, why us?
I had left an 8 year career in sales about 6 weeks prior to Tom’s accident to begin setting up my own business in Therapy after retraining in 2019. Not only was the realisation that Tom was gone horrifically painful, shocking and heart breaking, we were both completely financially dependent upon him. He paid for the house we were living in and also the bills and a loan we had secured against the house. What was I going to do, my business wasn’t established enough to pay for all of that?! Panic set in alongside this deep pain but numb like feeling in the rest of my body. People talk about a ‘rabbit in the headlights’ and at this point I knew exactly what that meant. I was that little bunny rabbit just stunned by what life had thrown at me, what on earth was I going to do? Where would we end up? How was I going to cope without Tom? He sorted all of the things out with the house, the bills, supporting me, holding me up, telling me everything was going to be ok…..I can’t do this, not on my own!!
I spent a lot of that morning sat staring, feeling lost, numb but in pain, crying, wishing it wasn’t happening. I was baffled by everything I was being told by the police and the coroner and what would happen next. I was provided with a book from the police to try to explain to Heidi what had happened to her Daddy. I felt this wasn't age appropriate at the time and chose to tell her that Daddy was too poorly to come home and that he had gone to heaven but was a huge bright shining star in the sky looking down us on everyday. I also felt compelled to tell her he is always here with us in our hearts. Still to this day we hold our hands on each others hearts and she knows Daddy is with us. This was hands down the hardest single moment of my life.
These were some of Tom's Funeral Flowers, he was very musical and played both the Guitar and the Piano to a high level.
What happened from that day onwards with Police Liaison Officers visiting me, speaking with the coroner, dealing with banks, solicitors, arranging a funeral, this has sadly become the everyday norm for me now. Even as I sit and write this in December 2020, I am still dealing with police on a daily basis. Tom’s Road Traffic Accident (RTA) is going through the courts and this is a very long drawn out process and as Next of Kin I am the person that deals with all of this.
Going back to March and the days that followed, my dad travelled up from London to come and sit with me for several days to look at my finances and get myself in a position to be able to make a plan as to what I was going to do. Heidi and I needed somewhere to live. We devastatingly discovered that Tom had no Life Insurance so I would have to sell the house and had a large loan I would also have to try to pay back. I was in an unthinkable position.
11 days after Tom’s accident the UK was put into the National Lockdown due to the outbreak of Covid-19. This made these early days even more agonising as it meant, although I had had lots of wonderful visitors and my house looked like a florists by this point with all of the condolences, my dad had to travel back home due to the lockdown and no one other than my mum and my sister (who both moved in with me to help me day to day) could visit me anymore. It made what was already an incredibly difficult time even more tough not being able to have the physical support from friends or wider family, but we managed and there were a lot of Zoom calls when I was feeling up to it.
Tom’s Funeral took place at the beginning of April and at this stage we were only allowed 10 people to the service due to Covid restrictions but were told there would be a Live Stream for others to be able to log in and watch the ceremony. Sadly this link initially failed it was devastating that no one could properly see the effort we had made for Tom and the beautiful flowers in the shape of a guitar and a piano (see pics above) and pay their respects properly to him. The crematorium would have been overflowing with people, Tom was very well respected in his work and knew a lot of people. I received some wonderful messages of support and felt I had support of people even from afar with me on the day. It was heart wrenching not being able to have a Wake for Tom and just having to travel home and have a drink at home for him. We still haven’t been able to do this with the restrictions so not having had the closure of celebrating his life is tough.
Each day was a struggle. Just to get up, be strong for my girl, look after myself, but I managed it. I had days that were ok and I found it slightly easier to do normal activities but some days I could barely speak or move myself from just sitting staring into space. I was so lucky I had my mum and sister there right by my side picking me up when I was in a heap and Heidi was just fantastic, she would pass mummy tissues every time she saw me cry. I let her see me upset because I believe its important for children to see that it's ok to show your emotions.
Left image:
Heidi and myself in the summer :)
Right Image:
Me showing how much exercise I had been doing as it helped me in so many ways, such as, the focus it provided, the routine, endorphin release when I needed it most and it literally helped me cope each day.
I was so grateful to have completed my therapy training in 2019 and taken my love for positive psychology to the next level. I already had some good habits in completing my gratitude journal daily and I was quite into my fitness but I had stopped this for a while as I wasn’t sleeping and had no energy some days at all. The grief, pain, crippling loneliness and worry for our future continuously sapped everything out of me. But despite all of this the fire inside me was still there even in the form of embers burning away underneath.
I gradually began to see I had this drastic new perspective on every angle of my life. We all hear of 'Life is short', 'You only live once', 'Enjoy life while you can', also my Daily Gratitude practice started to take a new angle and I found myself looking for all of the positives I still had in my life despite everything that had happened. Of which there were many. This was the key to turning life around.
I turned a corner. I got back into my exercise and pushed even more than I had before. I poured into my 'self-love' cup more than I ever had.
I could see the future in a much more positive light and started to make plans.
I was lucky that I sold our house very quickly and after a few months of back and forth with solicitors and sorting finances we eventually moved into our new family home at the end of September.
This new chapter gave me the next bout of strength I needed to deal with the next stage of my journey towards healing and rebuilding our lives.
The same week I moved house I found out that the driver involved in Tom's accident was being prosecuted and that it was going to go to court. This was a shock as I had been prepared to expect the opposite.
However, although this felt like another blow and would mean everything would drag everything out a lot longer, I took it in my stride because I had been looking after myself a lot more and continuously working on my mindset. I could see that this was going to be difficult but it was completely out of my control and I would just need to surround myself with even more love and support than I had been anyway.
I could do it, I know I could. I had already dealt with so much and was still standing and here to tell the story. This was back in September and we are now December and I'm feeling that bit stronger each day. I am getting through this and I am proof that you can ABSOLUTELY HIT ROCK BOTTOM and come out the other side thriving!
This has been a whirlwind summary really of our Grief Story. I will be continuously adding to my Blog in more detail as to the different techniques I use and how I taught myself to use my PAIN and turn it into the POWER to turn my life around. And how you can absolutely find LIBERATION after LOSS like this.
So please keep reading them......it will mean the world to me and I hope to give you some hints and tips along the way too :)
I literally cannot wait to start helping others get through tough life challenges and trauma like this and THRIVE not just survive.
Thank you so much for reading this, I hope it has inspired you in some way. Please share with others if you think it may help them too.
Emma x
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Comments
So sad. I read this with a very heavy heart. You are doing so well. I will follow your tips and techniques to get myself in a better place. Life is tough but so are we xxx
Leigh thank you for reading and for your kind words. You are 100% right, we are all tougher then we realise and there is power in our pain and healing :) xxx
I actually cried for you reading this Emma and I will continue to follow your blog hun
You are an inspiration and the strongest person I’ve ever met
Sending hugs to you and Heidi x x x
Michelle thank you for taking the time to read this and for your lovely kind words it means so much to us. Thank you xxx