Celebrating friendships

Loneliness is a huge problem in our society… I am still in shock that 45% of adults feel lonely in England. It’s a heartbreaking statistic, and it doesn’t need to be the case.

People often say “I was thinking about you”… but sometimes they haven’t been in contact with for ages… so we have no idea that we are on their minds… after all, we’re not telepathic!

But, there are friends out there who who message each time they think of each other… it may be on key dates, when they pass locations they have been together, when they use a gift they have been given, when they see a social media post that reminds them of you, or sometimes they send pictures of things that trigger memories of the friendship… whatever the connection is, there is no doubt that communicating to others when you are thinking about them brings joy to the recipient’s heart! After all, kindness is the opposite of stress.

Yet, in our busy lives, finding friends who you can trust, who will be by your side during the good times and the bad, who will drop everything to be at the end of the phone for you, is not easy. And, it’s even more difficult when you are widowed because (thankfully) not so many people our age “get it”. 

There’s a quote that “Strangers are just friends waiting to happen” and, especially within the widowed community, I have have been fortunate enough to experience this. Emma C and I first met through Instagram (she has an amazing blog about the rollercoaster ride that is being a widow & it is loaded onto her @lifeisarollercoaster2021_ Insta account)… we linked up and followed each other having seen that we were both Ambassadors for the charity WAY (Widowed and Young), it was back in 2021 when I was five years into the widowhood journey. Emma had only lost her husband the year before from Covid but, even though our husband’s deaths were very different, automatically the conversation was easy… Emma C mentioned that she had spent a lot of the first year of grief in shock and I shared how the shock of the first year actually helped me. As a military widow, I had found that the denial enabled me to keep going when the going got tough because feeling all the feelings would have been too overwhelming.

Shortly after we connected, I saw Emma C post something on her Instagram about some worries she had about attending Carfest for the first time without her husband. We love that festival because we went for the first time with my late husband (it was one of the bucket list things we did with our kids in between his various cancer treatments). I had then taken the girls with my sister in August 2016, only a couple of weeks after my husband died, and we had been back, just the three of us, a couple of times since. In my text banter with Emma C I explained how old my girls were, where we were camped and I offered that we would be there if she fancied meeting up, but I also understood that she might not want to if she was with a group of friends. I just wanted her to know that I could be a back up… a place to escape to if she and her daughter needed it.

It is amazing how total strangers (but who have a common tragic connection) can be there for each other in a way that long-standing friends can’t. Emma C then opened up to me about the wobbles she was having about going to the festival with her daughter and seeing all the couples around her… and our friendship was born. Although I was heartbroken to hear Emma C’s story, I was so delighted to meet someone who instinctively understood so many of the emotions I had been living with since my husband died. I shared my story about how my girls and I first went to CarFest with my late husband when he was ill and we had been a few times since, with others and on our own. I opened up about how being on my own with my girls could be scary, how emotive the music was and how lovely it would be for our daughters to meet. Somehow, in the huge crowds, we managed to meet up… it was the beginning of a friendship that means the world to me.

Although a lot of our friendship has been remote: sharing stories on Instagram, texts and phone calls, we share the highs and lows of our grief journeys and of our roles as solo parents, which is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Speaking to someone who has similar struggles is so helpful… not for any advice on how to fix things, because our situations can’t be fixed, but to have someone who can listen, empathise and support whilst we ride the rollercoaster of life. WAY friends are similar to my military wife friends… they automatically understand the aching pain of loneliness when our soul mates are not around. I am fortunate to have a couple of similar amazing friendships within the Royal Marine & Milspo community and one RM wife friend in particular has messaged me almost every week since my late husband was poorly… it’s a friendship that has been a true rock and stability for over twenty years, through various family storms. Both the military friends and my WAY friends understand what it’s like to just want a hug and to hear that things will work out.

The wonderful thing about true friendship is that it doesn’t matter when you last saw each other… when you finally meet again it’s as though nothing has changed (even if everything has changed)… the bond of a good friendship is so easy and natural. Over the years my friends have been there for me in good times and bad… they have helped me find my feet again after wondering if I’ll manage to keep going. Six years into the widowhood journey Emma C helped me face up to my fear of the “boy job” of DIY (which I was beginning to wonder if I would ever manage) and in the process I discovered that my younger daughter loves helping with those household repairs! Good friends understand the triggers that stir up the various emotions we face throughout life and I will be forever grateful for the stability of both my military and my WAY friends. They are people that I feel safe and comfortable around… whether we’re doing shots at a party or having an emotional breakdown.

As for the charity WAY, it is a club that no one wants to join but I’m so pleased we found it - thank you to WAY for helping people’s worlds collide and for creating these magical connections! Finding a group of people who understand the experience of loss is a true #RainbowMoment. If you’re reading this and thinking of someone who means the world to you… please reach out to them, I promise you that it will brighten up their day to know that you are thinking of them.