I still react like Kate Garraway when someone calls me a widow 6 ...

‘I keep saying, just treat me normally, everyone realises they don’t know how to anymore.’

As Kate Garraway bravely returned to GMB this morning after the death of her husband, Derek Draper, her words catapulted me back to my own early days of ‘widowhood’ – a title that has never sat well with me – and my heart ached for her.  

I know more than anyone just how awkward people become around those who have just lost a loved one.

In July 2017, I sat by my husband Ross’s hospice bed and watched him take his last breath.  

I was 32. My daughters Brooke and Texas were six and four and we had gone from being a family of four with a future full of possibilities, to Ross being ripped away from us in the blink of an eye. 

Even now, seven years on, I remember, through the haze of my grief, how awkward everyone seemed around me. The averted looks, the silent nods…

It was the last thing I needed. We really have to become better at talking about death.

Ross and I met at 22 on a promotional job for Pimm’s. I was a TV actress at the time, starring in Waterloo Road and Casualty, and Ross ran his own teamwear and property business.

From the moment we met, we were a pair, fitting together seamlessly. His friends even called us ‘Rolly’ combining our names like we combined our lives.

We were with each other all the time – life just felt more fun that way – and when we were lucky enough to have our daughters, it was the icing on the cake.  

Then, in 2014, after experiencing symptoms of depression and severe headaches, Ross was diagnosed with a grade 4 PNET brain tumour, normally found in children.

At 29, we didn’t see it coming. The shock was immense.

But as the news sank in, we dealt with it as we did everything: Head on and together.

We laughed through two brain surgeries; we lived around chemo and radiotherapy appointments, with Ross still continuing to work and going out to play football with his mates.

Even though we knew the odds, we were convinced that we would get him through this, that he was young enough to survive it and that we would come out the other side together.

Then when we were told the treatment hadn’t been successful, that there was no more that could be done, I had to work out who I was without him. 

People might imagine, given the prolonged illness that Kate’s husband Derek went through, that she must have been prepared for this day, but you’re not.

Ross spent three and a half years living with a brain tumour and I still wasn’t ready for him not to be by my side, no matter how much I tried to imagine how this would look. 

A month after Ross’s death, with the rain pouring down around us, I walked my daughters into school, feeling the uncomfortable stares of fellow parents and teachers engulf us as I tried to hold in my pain. 

People avoided eye contact, they whispered or cocked their heads to one side and gave me the British awkward nod of ‘I’m sad for you but I don’t know what to say’.

It made me feel like I was in a goldfish bowl, distant and alone. I’d have rather people had talked, asked questions or acknowledged they knew.

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The thing is, at that point, you feel awkward enough as it is. Like you don’t fit in anymore.

You go from being married, a ‘Mrs’, to ticking boxes that say ‘widow’. It’s a word I just don’t identify with – I’m not an old crone or a panto dame.

People started describing ‘my late husband’, an odd expression that often has me blurting out, ‘he’s not late though, he’s dead’ to uncomfortable onlookers.  

I understand people don’t mean to be clumsy when you become a widow, they just don’t know what to say.

There is this mistaken belief that if they mention your person that they will cause you pain, when it’s the fact they’re dead that’s causing you pain. And avoiding talking about them just feels weird.

It makes no difference. As Kate, and anyone who has lost a partner, will know, they’re on your mind constantly anyway.

Other people would impose their views about an afterlife, saying that Ross would be looking down on me from heaven. Yet, as well-meaning as I undoubtedly knew they were being, Ross and I were both atheists, so it landed uncomfortably.

Now, whenever I see someone who has lost someone, I try to be real, even blunt. ‘I’m so sad you’re going through this, it’s really unfair,’ I’ll often say, peppering in swear words. When someone is in such pain, flowery language often doesn’t feel raw enough.  

Or it might help to share a nice memory of their lost loved one, and ask them to share one back. We want to talk about them. We want to feel that the world won’t forget them. I love it when people tell me something hilarious Ross said or did. It reminds me of his impact and makes me smile. 

Of course, I don’t claim to speak for all widows and grievers. This is merely my experience, and all grief is deeply personal.

But even if you don’t know what to say to someone, own your discomfort or uncertainty. Be honest about the fact that you’re sad for them and that although you don’t have the words, you’ll be there.

That you’re happy to talk about their person; to distract and make them laugh; let them cry but that they aren’t alone. 

Kate, Derek will come with you in every choice you make, both by how he shaped your journey and how his death did.

You will see him in your children, and you will think about him for the rest of your life. He made his mark on this world and that is everlasting.

Be kind to yourself and don’t let anyone tell you how to walk yourself through this.

Some days will be good, some days won’t, but you have an army of people that will sit by your side through it all. 

Even if they’re not quite sure how to treat you now.

For more info, visit http://www.iamhollymatthews.com or http://www.instagram.com@iamhollymatthews

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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