Episode 17: The Second Year Of Grief: Living In The In-between

The second year of grief doesn't look like people expect.

It's quieter on the outside... but heavier on the inside. 

Less visible. Less understood. And somehow... more complicated.

This episode is about the in-between. Where joy and heartbreak sit side by side. Where you can stand at a wedding and laugh, cry, feel everything... and still miss them all at once. 

If you've ever felt like you should be 'further along' by now - this is for you

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Early Morning Coffee Club, the podcast where grief is intense, humour is finely ground, and strength stinks up on you like a double shot. I hope you've all had a lovely weekend. I certainly did, although I'm still recovering emotionally, physically, socially. You know where you've had one of those weekends where you need another weekend to recover from it? Yep, that kind of weekend. Because on Friday, my two best friends, John and Abby, got married, and it was honestly one of the most beautiful, emotional, chaotic, love-filled days I've ever been a part of. Now I've known John and Abby for a long time. They're what I call family. Friends who actually become family in all the ways that matter. Alex and I are their children's godparents and they're Oscar's godparents. They live a seven-minute walk away, which essentially means they're never not in our lives. John grew up with my late husband Alex. They were best friends, the kind of friendship that shapes your whole life, the kind where there are no versions of big moments that don't include each other. And then Abby came along, and from the very beginning it just worked. No effort, no awkwardness, and she just became part of us. So when they asked me to marry them, I didn't even try and hold it together. I just cried. They cried, we all cried. Very on brand for this podcast, to be honest. And on Friday, I stood there with my two best friends, our children wrapped around our feet, slightly feral, slightly sticky, and I told their story. I watched them exchange vows, and I got to say the words that made them husband and wife. It was magic. The morning of the wedding, Oscar and I went to visit Daddy's garden. And we told Alex everything, all about the wedding, about what we were wearing, about how exciting it was going to be. And then the day kind of split into two. John and the boys came to mine to get ready, and I went over to Abby's with the girls. But before everything started, I wanted to give John a moment. Because I knew without even needing to ask how much he would feel Alex's absence that day. So I set out Alex's favourite whiskey, a glass beside his ashes, and I wrote John a card inviting him to have a quiet toast with his best friend before the day began. And I gave him Alex's watch to wear. John told me later that all morning while they were getting ready a magpie kept coming into the garden to visit. And if you've listened to my episode about signs, you'll know why that mattered. Now, I think a lot of people were worried about me. And I get it, I really do, because on paper this is the kind of day that could completely undo you. A wedding. Best friends, the life you had, the life you lost. But the truth is I was just so, so happy, genuinely deeply happy. There was no jealousy, no bitterness, no this should have been us. Just this overwhelming feeling of gratitude that John and Abby were getting to experience the kind of love that Alex and I had. Of course, I wished more than anything that Alex was there, to stand next to John, to see it all, to probably make an inappropriate speech. But surrounded by my people, my family, my friends, and of course Oscar in his tiny suit and bow tie looking like an absolute heartbreaker, I knew I was going to be okay. Although, let's just talk about Oscar for a second, because while he did look adorable, he also chose chaos. There were moments, and I'm sure every parent listening will understand, where he just kicked off. At the worst possible times. Like right before I had to speak, or during all the emotional moments, or just because I don't know the wind changed direction or something. But this is where I realised something else. How unbelievably lucky I am. Because I didn't have to do it on my own. Friends just appeared, family stepped in, someone would pick him up, distract him, take him outside, hand him snacks, entertain him, like this invisible, beautiful safety net. And I remember having this moment of thinking, this is what it means to be held. Not just in grief, but in life. And throughout the day, people kept coming up to me and saying the same thing. My gosh, Oscar's just like Alex, the way he smiles, the way he looks, that little expression, that's Alex all over. And every time someone said it, it was like this tiny mix of comfort and heartbreak. Because part of me thought, thank God, thank God I still get to see pieces of him. And part of me thought, but he should be here to see it too. And then there were the videos. I watched on as people recorded the ceremony, the speeches, the dancing, and I had this moment, this very real, slightly ridiculous moment, where I suddenly felt this wave of sadness, because it reminded me at our wedding that we had a GoPro, and we were so excited about all the footage we would get on there. And you know what Alex did? He accidentally deleted all of our wedding footage and replaced it with videos of him snowboarding. Honestly, our entire wedding gone. Replaced by clips of him going down a mountain like he was in the Winter Olympics. And at the time I remember being like, are you actually fucking joking me? And he was obviously so so sorry, but also like yeah, but did you see how good that run was I did? And standing there at John and Abby's wedding watching people carefully record every important moment, I just thought to myself, I'm so glad that they will have this all documented, and I'm gonna make sure that John doesn't delete it. And it was in all of those moments, the joy, the chaos, the laughter, the missing, that something really clicked for me about grief. Because people prepare you for your first year. They talk about the first, the first birthday, the first Christmas, the first anniversary. And don't get me wrong, that first year is loud. It's visible, it's acknowledged, people check in, they understand. But then the second year comes and everything changes. The messages slow down, the support gets quieter, the world starts to expect that you're moving forward now, that you're okay. And here's where it gets complicated. Because in the second year, there's actually a bit of pressure. Pressure to be happy, pressure to be okay, pressure to be moving on, but at the exact same time, when you do laugh, when you do have a good day, when you do start to rebuild, there's this other pressure. This voice that creeps in and says, But what will people think? Why is she okay? Why is she not more upset? How can she move on like that? So you end up stuck between two expectations in the second year. One that says, you should be better by now, and one that says you shouldn't be better at all. And that is the limbo no one talks about. That is the second year of grief. Not the sharp, shocking pain at the beginning, but not peace either. It's softer on the outside, but heavier on the inside. Because now you're not just grieving them, you're trying to figure out who you are without them. Who am I now? What does my life look like now? What am I allowed to feel? You start to imagine a future again, and that is terrifying, because it means accepting that there is a future without them in it. And that doesn't feel like healing. It feels like betrayal. But here's the truth I keep coming back to. Moving forwards doesn't mean moving on. You don't leave them behind. You take them with you. In Oscar's smile, in the stories you tell, in the way you love people, in the way you show up. The second year of grief isn't about closure. It's about learning how to live in the in-between. Where joy and heartbreak sit side by side, where you can stand at a wedding, smiling, laughing, crying, all at the same time. And if you're in this stage feeling pulled in two directions, feeling like you don't quite belong in the life you had, but you're not fully in the life ahead either. Please hear this. You are not doing this wrong. You are responding exactly as a human being does when they've loved deeply and lost deeply. This is what it looks like. Messy, confusing, contradictory. So just be gentle with yourself. Ignore the timelines, ignore the expectations, yours and everyone else's. Just take it one day at a time. Learning how to carry love, loss, joy, guilt, laughter, all of it. And maybe that's what the second year is really about. Not letting go, but learning how to hold on in a different way. Thank you for sitting here with me today. This has been the Early Morning Coffee Club. I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad we're here together. I'll see you next week.