Last week I was sitting on a plane waiting to fly to Spain to host my widows retreat.

Months of preparation had gone into it. A group of wonderful women were waiting for me, my suitcase was full of yoga leggings, and ahead of me was a long weekend of sunshine, connection and rest.

And what was I thinking about?

My death.

Naturally.

Because apparently widowhood has a remarkable ability to make your brain focus on the least convenient thing imaginable at exactly the wrong moment.

The engines hadn’t even started properly before my mind decided it was the perfect time to revisit one of my least favourite topics: what happens to my son if I die too?

Now, if you’re not a parent, stay with me. Because this isn’t really a story about parenting. It’s a story about what happens when life presents you with a problem that has no neat solution.

Before Andy died, I never thought about this. Why would I? There were two of us. If something happened to one parent, there was another. There was backup.

And then suddenly there wasn’t.

As widows, we often become the person who has to hold everything. The decision maker. The organiser. The fixer. The one everybody turns to. The one carrying the responsibility. And sometimes that responsibility feels impossibly heavy.

My son is neurodivergent. Over the years I’ve spent thousands of hours learning what helps him, what overwhelms him, what makes him feel safe and understood. When I think about who would care for him if I wasn’t here, I don’t just think about practicalities. I think about love. I think about understanding. I think about all the tiny things that have taken years to learn.

And if I’m honest, I still don’t know exactly what the answer is.

I need to update my will – what felt right when Andy died is no longer practical now. I still couldn’t tell you with complete certainty what the perfect plan looks like. Its a complete conundrum. There is nothing straightforward or easy about it.

But as I sat on that plane, I realised something.

The thing that was upsetting me most wasn’t actually the problem itself. It was the desperate need to solve it immediately. Completely. Perfectly. Right now.

I wanted certainty.

I wanted someone to appear from nowhere and say, “Here’s the answer, Orla. You can stop worrying now.”

Unfortunately, life doesn’t tend to work like that.

And widowhood definitely doesn’t.

The longer I’ve been widowed, the more I’ve realised that some of the biggest questions we face don’t come with obvious answers.

Will I ever feel like myself again?

Should I move house?

Can I retire?

Should I leave my job?

What happens to my child if I’m no longer here?

Different questions, but underneath them all sits the same thing: a desperate search for certainty. The belief that if we could just think hard enough, analyse enough, worry enough, we’d somehow arrive at the perfect solution.

But here’s what I’ve learned.

The nervous system (the bit that makes us feel anxious, overwhelmed, terrified OR calm, safe, at ease) doesn’t become calmer because we’ve solved every problem. It becomes calmer when it feels safe enough to stop treating every uncertainty as an emergency.

By the time the plane landed, nothing had changed. I still didn’t have the answer, and the problem hadn’t magically disappeared. But I was no longer being consumed by it.

I’d breathed, grounded myself and found my way back into the present moment.

And from that place, something shifted.

Not certainty, but perspective.

The problem was still there, but now there was breathing room around it. Enough breathing room to realise that maybe I didn’t need to solve everything that day. Maybe I just needed a next step.

Since returning back home, I’ve started creating something I’m calling “I’ve Got You, My Love.“

A collection of notes about my son. What helps. What hurts. What comforts him. What scares him. The things people often misunderstand about him. The things I wish they knew.

Not because I’m planning to die, but because I’m planning to care.

And perhaps that’s the biggest lesson widowhood has taught me.

Not every problem can be solved immediately. Some can only be carried, at least for a while. And when we stop demanding certainty from ourselves, something surprising happens. We can think again. We can breathe again. We can see possibilities that panic was hiding from us.

Later that day I lay on a yoga mat in my garden. My son was upstairs gaming. The sun was shining.

Nothing had changed, yet everything felt different.

Because I’d stopped trying to force an answer that wasn’t ready to arrive.

Instead, I came back to what was true. My son was safe, I was safe and, in that moment at least, we were okay.

The will still needs updating (preferably before I get on the airplane for the October Retreat!). The conversations still need having. The notes still need writing. Big decisions need, somehow to be made but none of that needed to be solved before bedtime.

Perhaps that’s what all the movement, breathing, Yoga Nidra, meditation and nervous system work I’ve practised over the years has really given me.

Not certainty.

Not immunity from grief, fear or worry.

But the ability to return to myself when my mind disappears into the darkest corners of the future.

From that place, I can usually find the next step. Not the whole answer, just the next step.

Maybe that’s updating the will.

Maybe it’s writing one note for my “I’ve Got You, My Love” folder.

Maybe it’s having one difficult conversation.

And maybe that’s enough.

Because if I’m honest, my deepest hope isn’t that I find the perfect guardian for my son.

My deepest hope is that I get to keep doing what I’ve been doing: helping him build a life that feels safe, meaningful and connected. A life where he knows himself, understands himself and finds his people. People who love him. People he loves back. People who support him, and who are supported by him.

I want him to have his own tools, his own community and his own sense of belonging. I want him to know, beyond any doubt, how deeply he is loved.

And that’s something I can work towards today.

If widowhood has taught me anything, it’s this: life doesn’t always give us answers. But when we stop demanding certainty, we often discover the next step has been waiting for us all along.

If this landed with you, come and find me in your inbox.

Every week I write about the real, ongoing, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes brutal work of building life after loss. Honest, grounded, no grief-guru nonsense. Just one widow to another.

Sign up for my Wid to Wid newsletter here

Until next time — be so, so gentle with yourself. 💛

Orla

Holistic Widow Guide. I’m widowed too.

PS.

If this post has stirred something in you and you’re wondering what a next step might look like, I have options for every stage of the journey — from the very first tentative one to something deeper and more supported.

Within is my group programme for widows who are ready to work with their nervous system, their grief, and their sense of self — the next cohort will be opening soon and places are limited.

My free private Facebook community Beyond Bereavement Into Bravery is a gentle place to start — a space where you’ll be among people who truly understand, with no pressure and no performance required.

When you’re ready for something more regular, Re-member is my membership for widows — a community that holds you month by month as you find your feet in this changed life.

When you feel a pull towards something more immersive, my retreats offer space to breathe, to be held, and to come home to yourself in a way that day-to-day life rarely allows.

And if you’d like support that is entirely yours — just you and me — 1:1 work is where we go deepest.

You don’t have to know which one is right. Just start where you are.

Please drop me an email with the word “WITHIN” in the subject line and I will make sure you are the first to know about it when I’m ready to launch it. 

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