Episode 28: The D Word

A simple question from a stranger at a music festival got me thinking about one word I once couldn't even bring myself to say: died.

In this episode, I share why I've stopped whispering that word, how talking openly about death has helped both me and my son, and why I never want him to feel like his Daddy's story is something to hide.

This episode is about owning your story, raising children who aren't afraid to talk about death, and finding comfort in the things we can never truly understand ☕️🖤

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 sneaks up on you like a double shot. Well, I can tell you that I need an extra shot in my coffee this morning. Oscar woke me up at 5am this morning. In fact, you can probably hear him playing in the background, so apologies. But you can probably see how the name of this podcast is starting to make sense now. Anyway, I had such a nice weekend. I went to a festival called Valley Fest, which is this music festival just outside of Bristol. And yeah, I just had so much fun. Um and on the Friday night I got chatting to this really lovely couple from the Netherlands, and we were having one of those, you know, really normal conversations. Oh, what do you do? Where are you from? Have you got kids? I said, yeah, I've got a little boy called Oscar. And then came the question, Oh, so is your son with his dad tonight then? Now, in reality, there was probably about a ten second pause. Inside my head, I had this entire board meeting with myself. So my first thought was, okay, don't lie. Second thought was just tell the truth, say he's with his grandparents. Easy, simple. Conversation moves on. But then this other part of me thought, hang on, I don't want them thinking Oscar's dad is some sort of deadbeat or just not interested in his son. He's not an absent father, he's just died. I almost wanted to comfort them and say, it's okay, don't worry, you didn't know. Because that's the strange thing about grief. The person asking the question usually feels awful. The person answering it has probably answered it a hundred times before. It's not news to them. It's awkward for a few seconds, but then everyone moves on. Except sometimes the person who's grieving carries that conversation around with them for the rest of the day. And it's amazing how one sentence can completely change a conversation. One minute you're discussing overpriced festival points, the next, everyone's questioning the fragility of human existence. If that wasn't funny enough, the funnier thing is if Oscar had been standing next to me, I'd probably have answered that question differently. Instead, I'd have smiled, looked directly at Oscar and said, No, Oscar's daddy died. And Oscar almost certainly would have chimed in with, yeah, my daddy died. And then probably asked if he could have another ice cream. Children really know how to keep things moving. And so that got me thinking about the word died. Because there was a time when I couldn't even say it. I remember not long after Alex died and looking at my phone, seeing a blank screen and realizing it needed charging, and saying out loud, Oh, my phone's just du and I stopped myself. I couldn't say the word. Even talking about a phone battery felt impossible. It was as though the word itself had become cursed, as though saying it out loud somehow made it more real. So to start off with, I avoided it, and instead used passed away, lost, gone, no longer with us, every phrase except the actual word. Because somehow died felt too sharp, too final, too painful. But now I say it all the time. And I think a huge part of that is Oscar. Very early on I was advised to use clear, direct language with Oscar. Don't say Daddy's gone to sleep, don't say we've lost him, don't say he's gone away. Say he died. Because children understand the truth far better than they understand confusing metaphors. And over time that directness has changed me too. So now I don't whisper it, I don't lower my voice, I don't treat it like a dirty word. Sometimes when Oscar tells someone my daddy died, they'll look at me almost waiting for me to rescue the conversation. And that's why instead I smile, I nod, and I say, Yes, Oscar, that's right, Daddy died. Because I never want Oscar to think it's something he should be embarrassed to say. And I don't care if it makes other people uncomfortable. I care if it makes Oscar feel uncomfortable. And if I spend years tiptoeing around that word, he'll learn it's something that we don't talk about. It's something shameful, it's a secret, and I never ever want that for him. His dad existed, his dad lived, his dad died. All three of those things can be true, and I want it to feel the easiest thing possible for him to talk about his daddy in any way. And I'm also proud. I'm proud of who Alex was. I'm proud that I got to be his wife, I'm proud of the father he was to Oscar, even though their time together was far too short. I want people to know about him. Not because I want them to know how he died, but because I want them to know how he lived. For a long time I used to say that I never ever wanted to be defined by being a widow. I didn't want pity, I didn't want people to see me as the woman whose husband died. I wanted to be seen as me. And I still do, but I've realized something else. Becoming a widow is one of the most defining things that has ever happened to me. Pretending it isn't would be pretending away a huge part of my life. It has shaped me, it's broken me and rebuilt me. And it has changed the way I see the world, the way I parent, the way I love, the way I spend my time, the things I worry about, and the things I no longer waste energy on. Being a widow isn't all that I am, but it is now a big part of who I am. And instead of trying to hide that, I want to own it. I'm proud of the wife I was, I'm proud of the widow I've become, I'm proud of the mother that grief has shaped me into. Because despite the unimaginable, I'm still here, I'm still saying his name, I'm still making sure Oscar knows exactly who his daddy was, and I think that's something to be very proud of indeed. And then earlier this week, Oscar asked me a really interesting question that I knew was coming one day. Mummy, what's heaven? For context, we've been watching this film and someone mentioned heaven. He looked at me waiting for an answer. And I realised I didn't really know what to say. Because children assume grown-ups know everything. But spoiler alert, we absolutely don't. So I did what most parents do, and I stumbled my way through an answer. I said some people believe heaven as a place where people go after they die. Some people believe we come back as someone or something else. Some people believe different things. And then he asked me, What do you think, mummy? And honestly, I was speechless. Because I didn't know. No one does. We spend our entire lives trying to understand the universe. Death is the one thing that every single human being will experience. Yet the one question every human being eventually asks, we still can't answer. What happens when we die? We all have theories, we all have hopes, we all have beliefs, but really nobody knows. But here's what I do know. I don't believe that love simply disappears. I don't believe a person can spend thirty four years changing the world around them and then suddenly become nothing. Bodies are made of atoms, and atoms don't simply cease to exist. They change, they move, they become part of something else, and I like to think people do too. Maybe that's why I still feel Alex everywhere. When the wind catches in the trees, when the waves roll onto the shore, when the sun warms my face, when I hear Oscar laugh in exactly the same way, I don't think he's trapped in one place. I think he's woven into everything. Not as someone I can see, but as someone I can still feel. Maybe that's faith, maybe it's science, maybe it's simply hope. I don't really mind what you call it, because it brings me peace, and sometimes peace is enough. Oscar, one day you'll probably ask me again what happens when we die. And I might still tell you that I don't know. Because I won't pretend to have answers that nobody has. But I will tell you what I believe. I believe that your daddy is far too extraordinary to simply disappear. I believe every person leaves fingerprints on the world, not the kind detectives look for, the kind they leave unhearts, and your daddy left them everywhere. In me, in you, in his family, his friends, in everyone lucky enough to know him. I believe that he's in every story we tell about him, every time we laugh at one of his ridiculous jokes, every time you do something that reminds me so much of him that it catches my breath. I believe that he's the wind that brushes your face, in the waves that crash against the shore, in the forests he loved in Finland, in the stars that appear when the world grows quiet. Not because I can prove it, but because love like his doesn't feel like something that ever ends. And one day you'll make your own mind up about what happens after we die. Whatever you choose to believe, I hope it brings you the same comfort. And if years from now you ever find yourself standing by the sea, feeling the wind on your face, wondering whether your daddy is somehow still close, I hope you'll smile, because whether it's science, faith, memory, or simply love, you'll never have to search very hard to find him, because he's already part of you. Thank you again for listening to this week's episode. I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad we're here together. I'll see you next week.