Last week, I went to my mother-in-law’s funeral. Audrey. Fierce, vibrant, funny Audrey.
Except she hadn’t really been Audrey for some time. Alzheimer’s had softened her edges, dulled her spark. The woman who once took charge of everything from dinner to job applications was now someone who looked up at me and asked, “Who are you, dear?” as I sat beside her on the sofa.
And while I was there, saying goodbye to this version of Audrey, something else crept up on me.
Grief always has a way of doing that—hitting you sideways when you think you’ve developed a bit of a shield.
Because while I was watching her daughters and her husband stand up and speak about her, I found myself back at Andy’s funeral. And the one thing I didn’t do.
I didn’t speak.
I didn’t stand up. I didn’t say the words. I didn’t tell the room who he really was. I didn’t make people laugh through their tears. I didn’t honour him in the way I know now I wanted to.
Because someone told me I didn’t have to.
And that was all the permission I needed, in that overwhelmed, grief-shocked state, to opt out. To avoid the pressure. The fear. The worry I’d mess it up. The idea of standing in front of a packed crematorium of people who all loved Andy and trying to sum up 24 years together? Impossible.
But Andy was the kind of person who would have stood up. I know that because I watched him do it. At his best friend Justin’s funeral, Andy spoke. And not just spoke—he brought Justin into the room. He painted him so vividly that we could almost hear Justin’s laugh, see the cheeky grin, remember the ridiculous things he used to say and do, the many ways in which they got into trouble… Andy made us all laugh through our devastation. Then, in just a few words, he cracked open every heart with the way he showed his love.
That’s the kind of goodbye Andy gave. And I didn’t give him the same.
I’ve carried that with me. Not as a constant, heavy regret, but as a whisper. A nudge. A “one day, maybe.” One day I’ll write what I would have said. One day I’ll read it aloud. One day I’ll tell the world who he was to me.
Because I did know who he was. I just didn’t know how to speak through the shock.
Funerals come with so many unspoken rules. So much tradition. So much pressure to do it “right.” And no one tells you what your options really are—until it’s too late to choose anything else.
And even if they do tell you? You might be like I was: too broken, too numb, too afraid to take it all on.
You go through the motions. You follow the script. You survive it.
And then—later—you look back and think: I wish I’d done it differently.
I hear this again and again in the widow communities I’m part of. It’s not just about funerals. It’s about diagnosis. About hospital visits. About treatments we didn’t push for. Symptoms we didn’t know to take seriously. Questions we didn’t ask.
All these ways we think we failed.
We should have known. We should have done more. We should have done better.
We’re so hard on ourselves.
But here’s what I know now:
We did the best we could with what we knew, in the moment, with the information and the capacity we had. We were not doctors. We were not psychic. We were just people, trying to make it through an impossible time.
And yes, maybe we would do things differently now. But we didn’t have “now” then.
All we ever have is what’s right in front of us.
So I’m trying to be kinder to the me that made those choices. The one who was lost. The one who wanted someone to take her by the hand and say, “Here’s what to do.”
The one who was so relieved to be told she didn’t have to speak, that she ran from it.
If I could go back, I wouldn’t give her that option.
I would say: “Do it anyway. Be messy. Be scared. Let your voice shake. He’s worth it.”
But I can’t go back.
So I do what I can now.
I tell the truth. I keep his stories alive. I support others through their own chaos and confusion. I help people understand their grief, their nervous systems, their stuckness, their pain.
And maybe, one day, I’ll write him the eulogy I couldn’t say out loud. Maybe I’ll read it somewhere. Maybe I’ll post it. Maybe I’ll whisper it into the sea.
Maybe that’s what grief lets us do: keep writing the story.
Even when the first few chapters didn’t go the way we wanted.
P.S.
If you’re navigating your own storm of guilt, confusion, or what-ifs, I see you. This stuff is hard. You are not failing. You are doing what you can with what you’ve got. And if you need help making sense of any of it, please check out my Support page of various ways I can be there to listen and hold space for you.
I have other blogs that explore grief, parenting, love, and the chaos of being human. You can read more here, or if you’re looking for something gentle to hold you right now, download my free guided meditation here.
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You’re not alone—even when it feels like it.