After losing her husband Dan to suicide while 35 weeks pregnant with their third child, WAY Widowed and Young member Amy talks about how she has navigated life as a widowed parent – and shares some helpful tips for other parents who’ve been widowed to suicide…

I was widowed in December 2019. I was living in Bournemouth at the time, where my husband was from, and I had gone to see family in Merseyside at Christmas.

The aftermath of his death was a huge whirlwind. I was 35 weeks pregnant and my initial thought was 'how would I financially support my family?' I had suffered with hyperemesis gravidarum and had been off work for a large part of the pregnancy. I knew that my maternity pay wouldn’t even cover the mortgage, never mind the bills. We had life insurance, but I didn’t know if they would honour the policy as he died by suicide.

I gave birth four weeks after Dan died in a planned homebirth because I didn’t want to have to explain my situation to everyone in hospital and I felt incredibly vulnerable. The midwives were incredible and, although it was a very painful and obviously emotional birth, I felt safe being at home with my parents.

The funeral was exactly three weeks after this. It was a large affair, filling the Catholic church where our children had been baptised, but I felt so alone during it. I remember walking down the aisle, with my 3-week-old baby strapped to my chest in the sling, thinking ‘what am I doing’. It felt like an out-of-body experience and I think I disassociated for most of it.

After the wake, we returned to the hotel with all my family, and I sat on the bed feeding thinking ‘what now?’. We spent the next few days packing up my house in Bournemouth and sorting everything before returning up north to begin to try and heal.

How did you support your children through all of this?

My kids had just started a new primary school when Dan died and were settling in well. They were only four and five at the time but they had adapted so well. We spent a lot of time with their cousins and tried to keep life as ‘normal’ as possible for them. Even spending Christmas Day as we would usually, despite finding out two days earlier that their daddy had died.

Then the pandemic hit, just a month after the funeral, and everything collapsed. The kids were sent home from school, and we began to process of home education whilst caring for a newborn. Everything we knew disappeared, and we were left trying to support two completely traumatised children.

How did you talk to your children about what happened?

We told the kids straight away what had happened. We did a quick Google search to see what was recommended and came across some resources by Winston’s Wish (now part of Child Bereavement UK), which all highlighted the importance of being truthful. It’s not a conversation that anybody wants to have and in honesty, probably the most difficult one that I’ve ever had. But I didn’t want to spend the next however many years lying to them and then trying to remember what I’d said. I also didn't want them to hear it from anybody else, or overhear a conversation and be very confused.

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