The widow diary

2023 is almost finished… another year ends without you… another year starts and you aren’t here to see it… The end of the year and the start of the year, in my opinion, is even harder than Christmas for someone bereft… for who is in the first year they will have to say they lost their loved one last year, and that makes it feel they are gone for so long… we realise how far away is our happy days with them and that we will have to live the rest of our lives without them. That they will not be here for all the important and non important things that will happen to us in the next year (s)… This will be the fourth new year without James… I cannot believe it is already this long and at the same time it still feels so unreal and that he was still alive yesterday… since I met James I always spend the New Year’s Eve with him, he was my last and my first kiss and hug of the year… now I end and start the year crying because he is not here… the last three New Year’s Eves I spend in Portugal, and ...

Faísca Manuel was my family dog… he was 16.5 years old… when he meet James was love at first sight… Today I said goodbye to Faísca… through video call just before he was put asleep… I am broken right now… I know he was an old boy but I was still hoping to see him once again when I went again to Portugal in March… I guess he didn’t want me to see him suffering and decided to go before… I will always love my little Faísca Manuel… He was the sweetest crazy little dog I ever met… He loved to sleep with me and whenever I was poorly he wouldn’t leave my side… I know he is now full of energy again and running alongside James, like he used to do when we were in Portugal for holidays… Like in this photo taken in the last time James went with me to Portugal in 2019, I can see them running together again… RIP Faísca Manuel (22/07/2007-26/12/2023).

December can be a very tough month for someone bereft, especially if you have lost the love of your life and your partner… your person, yep, the person you choose to share your life with until you are really old and needing dippers… WAY (Widowed and Young) is an UK charity that supports people like me, that lost their partners at young age… when we are too young to be widowed… And we have some private Facebook groups (for example for people that have/likes cats, for widows with kids, for widows without Kids, etc…), and scrolling through one of the groups (I don’t remember which one) I saw a post from a fellow widow saying “wake me up when December ends”… And that made me think in how hard December is for us… while everyone is happy and merry buying presents for their loved ones and preparing everything to have a lovely time with their loved ones, we are aching because the person we most wanted to be here to spend this special time of the year with us is not here, at least physically… T...

  On the 9th of July 2020 my life was changed forever… The love of my life passed… we were together for 4 years and a few months. Unfortunately, we weren’t married yet, for us that was just a paper, we already saw each other as married, we moved in together after 6 months… we knew we were meant to each other! It’s been hard these last 3 years and something… not having James physically with me… but I like to believe that he is always with me in spirit, looking after me and our little cat, Kiko! I really don’t know where I would be without Kiko! He is still the reason for me to get out of the bed every day! He is why I am still here, because if I am not here who will look after him?  I was just 40 when James passed, I know, too young to be widow, but I guess death doesn’t choose… I wish we had more years together, we had so many plans…  So why did I decided to start a blog more than 3 years after his death? Well because I feel that sharing my experience with others could he...