‘MUMMY ISN’T COMING BACK’

Gavin Breen, 34, lost his wife to cancer in late 2020. Here, he writes a letter to himself about the grief he endured

Dear Gavin,

It's been six months; 183 days; 4.392 hours; 263,520 minutes; 15,811,200 seconds since Rhi died. I'm writing to you now because I wanted to tell you about some of the stuff you will experience in the coming months.

This is something you hear happening to someone else, not us. But it did happen, and here we are a single parent with two small kids trying to hold it all together. M will start to ask you where Mummy is and whether she's still upstairs sleeping. You'll notice his mood drop, and when you ask him what's wrong, he'll burst into tears and say, 'I've lost my mummy, haven't I? All you'll be able to do is hold him and let him know it's OK to cry. I is as boisterous as ever and your relationship with her will be strained on levels you couldn't imagine.