blog Archives | No Rain No Rainbows: My life as a young Widower

Comeback kid

5th August 20199th August 2019
by Mark Wilcock

I have decided to wrap up my blog with this final post for my rainbow of love, loss and the pot of hope found at the end of it. My thoughts have gone into overdrive for this, complete with the countless speed bumps of contemplation on my entire decision to stop.

It was only last week that I was sat in my home in Southport where I started to piece together my thoughts for this post. I told myself to “maybe I should wait a bit longer”, though; I knew I needed to figure out whether my decision to stop was based on it just being ‘the right time’ or something else?

No matter how I observed my feelings, I had to be honest with myself. I realised that all the anguish that made me start writing my blog at the beginning, has now changed shape. It has now morphed into something that is making me want to hold back my energy. Maybe it is just the obvious and simple fact that I need to concentrate all my energy on writing my book. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and I certainly can’t ignore how I’m now feeling.

So, at this point, I stopped thinking about what I wanted to write down. I got up out of my chair and made a beeline to the kitchen counter, where there was a plate of cookies that I’d been avoiding all day. I ate the whole plate.

Then I thought to myself, “how could cookies not make me feel better?” Then all of a sudden, I started to think about Katherine’s love for cookies.

When she was alive she would never settle for just any old cookie. They would have to be the soft doughy type. The ones that just melt in your mouth when you chew them. Of course, they could only be worthy of her full praise if they came with the chunkiest chocolate bits concealed inside them.

As a child, Katherine and her family set the goalposts high for the ultimate cookie eating experience. In the past, her family went on holiday to Orlando, Florida, USA. They had discovered the grocery chain called ‘Publix’, which they’re cookies became the holy ‘Cookie’ grail. Since this discovery, every other cookie was adjudicated against the ‘Publix’ experience.

So, I then started to think about the purpose of my blog in the same sense as Katherine’s ‘Publix’ cookie test. In a way, it has been my own ultimate experience for my grief. It had been my best support tool all along, releasing my thoughts, my emotions, my pain and my hope. It has helped people to understand and to know what life was truly like behind closed doors of a widowed Dad and Husband. Nothing else compared to it.

I then questioned myself whether my resolve to wrap my blog up was because I’d had enough of analysing everything in my head, or whether all my topics of grief had simply run their natural course. In which case, perhaps my mind was probably just adapting accordingly in preparation to write a book. Could writing my book be the very nature of Katherine’s ‘Publix’ cookie test? It could initially be judged against the power of my blog when it is released. Complete with all the chunky blocks of love I intend to put inside it.

It then occurred to me that “yes, this is it”, this was the next logical step. I now have the opportunity to build a legacy for Katherine on behalf of our little girl by capturing the special moments of her life for her to cherish forever. It was the right time to finalise the blog once and for all.

I started this blog from nowhere. I have pushed it hard and I’ve found lots of others who were searching for the same thing as me. One of the most beautiful things about the empathy of others was the fact we have all helped one another, and we remain to do so continually. I think that reaching out to the people I eventually found was probably the most significant step I could have taken in helping myself through the pain of grief.

Something I have never told anyone is my personal feelings when I reached my fifth post in my blog. I felt that all the readers would think I was just being a dictatorial dick about grief. I would even think some would even see me as an attention seeker and just simply want me to “shut the fuck up?” But that simply wasn’t the case, it was all in my head when I began to connect with others.

I must admit, things progressed quite quickly with all my truthfulness in grief. I have had the opportunity to go farther into the public domain: radio appearances, media interviews, life Insurance adverts, articles in newspapers, magazines and now my final piece, a book. It was really interesting to observe how people, in general, are interested in reading and sharing it. This was one of my other purposes for it I wanted to help the many who haven’t even experienced loss.

Despite my division of opinion, today is a good day to move onto the final stage. I now have to make a promise to myself to crack on with the final legacy for Katherine. I can’t see myself writing both my book and blog together. My body and mind simply won’t let me. My emotional energy to write can sometimes run so high for a single moment, and then grow hardened in the next period of time.

With time in mind, I also want to concede that time does, in fact, heal dramatically. I find this strange to say, but it did occur to me the other day that I don’t see myself as a ‘widower’ anymore – it’s just a label. Maybe with all the time that has been and gone, I don’t want this label to define me now, for the rest of my days. Even without this label, nothing about losing Katherine feels any different inside my heart.

Over the last few months, I’ve experienced this strange sensation – a feeling like I’m starting to live a happy new life again. My love for my wife Nicola is a magical thing and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to live and love again. I feel like I’m not playing an uncomfortable role anymore, but yet I can still hold and love my past in my heart and my head. I will never forget the life and love I have with Katherine.

It’s quite funny how I’m reminded of how my life is now. I had to fill in the marital status section of an online form last week. I spotted ‘Widowed’ within the drop-down list. I thought, Oh shit! That’s not me anymore, I’m married! Then a smile appears on my face.

I guess the smile comes from how I feel. The feeling of content is enough to gratify myself and to not be entirely defined by my past, but – honestly – I think it’s actually because I have a title and a status that is altogether more pleasing and delivers responsibility to my life: I’m a parent and a husband again.

For my daughter, Margot, she’ll start school next year. She just turned three last week and by the time she comes to read all the things I’ve written. I’m hoping she’ll understand that I’ve tried to create a narrative of the early years. I am sure she’ll comprehend how we never asked for the horror that life had thrown at us.

We’ve moved forward in the right direction and I want her to appreciate that it was only I who could judge and deem the most appropriate way forward for us both. I have found the strength and ability to reinvent myself, for reasons that she will eventually understand. I hope she will embrace the happy and sad times ahead of us. I can’t even begin to piece together the emotional rollercoaster of the discussions we’ll have throughout the years.

One thing I do know, and she’ll agree on. Nicola has won the gold medal for the Mother of the year award. The relationship they have is just so beautiful to see.

I called this blog ‘No Rain No Rainbows’ in admiration of the final line of the Hawaiian rules. I guess the ‘rain’ resembles all of the tears I’ve shed over the years of losing Katherine. The ‘rainbow’ of course is something Katherine admired deeply in life. It also carries the hope for the future out of sadness.

Let’s not forget that one can’t occur without the other too, which is important to remember. You can’t know what happiness is until you’ve tasted it. This is what I’ve always wanted my blog to describe too, in so many different ways. All of these experiences I’ve shared are for the benefit of others. I never thought I’d have to write or share my thoughts, I’ve never had any desire to, but I have made my choices and it has helped me immensely.

Life never goes to plan. If it did then I certainly wouldn’t be writing this blog for someone to read. It has been a really interesting life lesson, one that has gone down easier with a big plate of cookies.

Much love x

Mark

Feeling isolated

Writing to reach you

31st July 201931st July 2019
by Mark Wilcock

A few days ago, a fellow widower asked me “I need to address a few things, I’ve shelved so many feelings of my wife’s death because I just don’t know how to deal with them,” “what did you do Mark?” I was so unrehearsed for this query, I realised I hadn’t even asked myself this question. I was even more off guard with it being off the back of our laid-back chat about Football. So, my reply went “Wow, that’s some question. I’ll tell you what, read my blog next week and I’ll try my best.”

I’ve thought long and hard about his query every day since he asked. With him being at such an early stage of his grief, I wanted to give him the one tool that helped me the most. I had previously done and strained so many different types of therapeutic practices around my own grief. After some deliberation with my past and present efforts; I now feel poised to give my best and probably my most obvious response.

Now, before I share this, let me start by just stating that my grief has been so overwhelming for me since day one. Whatever support or therapy I’ve received, I have never expected to just wake up one morning to realise that all my grief had just vanished into thin air. It will never do you any favours as it certainly doesn’t’ work like that. Instead, the reality is, it will continue to be a drain on you, but on different levels, as time goes by. Always remember, self-therapy will just soften your emotions and teach you to understand them.

Even as I pace through my third cycle since Katherine’s passing. I have found that early grief had always made me feel confident about my emotions at one stage and then desperately insecure with them in the next. Confidence may not be something that everyone associates with bereavement, but it’s something I have certainly felt more of as time has gone by. Maybe this is just how my therapeutic practice has helped me embrace my past and my future.

So, if I could share some insight into my best emotional therapy. It would be this. I found and used a tool that we all have at our disposal. A very important tool that can potentially help any of us cope in any situation: writing.

Writing down my thoughts while grieving boosted my entire immune system and increased my emotional and mental health. This was even before I started sharing them on my blog. During the beginning, when I first started to document my thoughts. I noticed straight away that it triggered my strong emotions. I would even go as far as linking its release to the same sensation as crying or like the moments when I have felt extremely upset. It gave me a self-therapeutic benefit for just “letting off steam”. Especially when I didn’t want to speak to anyone about them.

I always had to remember that most of the people around me found it uncomfortable to discuss. Especially when it came down to the nitty-gritty details of Katherine’s death. My friends would talk to me about “getting through it” and “moving forward” and “healing.” They would shy away from talking about her actually passing, not out of cold-heartedness, but out of natural fear. I guess most people just don’t want to say the wrong thing; death is just downright scary overall. This made me understand why there is so much coverage of celebrity grief and movies about loss: they seem to create a public space where everyone can safely talk and feel something about another’s loss.

As the weeks and months went by, my writing was now the instrument of self-exploration, self-expression, and self-discovery that provided me with a safe space to simply be the grieving single parent widower I felt like. I didn’t need to attempt to talk to others as It was catering for all the things that were left unsaid, my unshared emotions, and those tricky questions for which I had no closure.

Of course, all my written efforts had to happen mostly in my head. Maybe this is one reason I wrote about my loss in real-time, so to speak. Writing seemed to help me puzzle through my bewildering change. It sparked my strength to let go of Katherine’s funeral and to help me bridge the stark boundary between my inner sorrow and my outer functioning.

I like to view everything that I’ve written on my blog as an internal psychological exploration of my grief. I have always felt that I wasn’t just writing about the loss of my wife and my daughters Mother. I was also mapping the intimate contours of this mysterious transformation I was experiencing. I even decided to share it with a lot of other people to, like yourself, reading this post now.

I’m no expert and I am not saying that writing is a substitute for professional therapy, it’s simply not! It has just provided me with a pathway to explore and discover my journey and all the courage and strength I’ve gained to build myself back up again. This was what I ultimately wanted, a more resonant description than any of the stages of grief could offer. One of the most beautiful things about it was the fact that no one could even judge me too.

While writing, I noticed that it became more of a ‘state of mind’ to address and reflect on what is actually going on, logically. Writing down my thoughts and feelings after I lost Katherine allowed me to express myself freely and safely. I had discovered a very rare and safe place to reflect on the meaning of life and death, which relieved me from my shackling thoughts and released a heavy burden in my chest.

With this massive release, it has been a lot easier to not only make it through the day but the weeks and the months. Easier, in the sense that I have full acceptance in the way everything in my life is now. Most of the ‘head banging’ questions have gained some much-needed closure too.

I guess if I hadn’t documented my grief I could have possibly been left slightly paralysed, muted and unable to comprehend my loss. Yet, I am now able to speak — to breathe, to sleep, to eat, to go for walks in the sun, to find myself laughing with my family and friends — to fall in love again — to even marry again.

Embracing Love again. Me and my beautiful wife, Nicola. (June 2019)

So, maybe you’re thinking of writing about your grief? I’d say go for it, or even just give it a try?

Here are some concepts I used. Maybe they might help you if you don’t know where to start:

• Always write down thoughts and feelings about yourself and the one you’ve lost (Carry a pen and paper with you or use your phone).

• Try to sort and list any conflicting emotions.

• Develop an understanding of things that have been suppressed inside.

• Make room for other thoughts and feelings.

• Try to be honest and think deeply about what you would want your loved one to know and acknowledge.

• Always express your regret as a way to bring closure

• Respect any change of thought and feeling you have about death and yourself.

• Reflect and understand yourself in a new light.

• Simply just be yourself. Remember your words will remain private and confidential and wouldn’t be published for public consumption. Unless you want it.