What happens when you have to grieve the person you love before they’ve even gone?

This week I’m joined by Holly Matthews. Holly is a former actress, TEDx speaker, founder of The Happy Me Project, and was widowed at just 32 when her husband Ross died from grade four brain cancer, leaving her to raise their two young daughters alone.

But before any of that, there was a Pimm’s promotional job, an instant connection, and a love story that moved at lightning speed. Holly and Ross built a relationship full of adventure, brutal honesty and the kind of laughter that makes two people feel like they’re speaking a language nobody else understands.

Then came headaches. Anxiety. Focal seizures that were dismissed as panic attacks. Until one scan changed everything.

Holly talks candidly about anticipatory grief, watching the person you love slowly disappear while they’re still alive, and the impossible conflict of desperately wanting more time while also wanting their suffering to end.

We also discuss what good healthcare communication looks like, why Holly later stood in front of a room full of brain surgeons to tell them exactly where they were getting it wrong, and how a single compassionate doctor made all the difference.

As always, we don’t shy away from the harder conversations. Holly shares what it was like preparing two little girls for the death of their dad, why she chose honesty over euphemisms, and the practical ways she’s helped them navigate grief ever since.

This is a conversation about love, truth, parenting, neurodivergence, identity, and what it really means to live fully when you’ve learned just how fragile life is.

In this episode we cover:

• Falling in love almost instantly and trusting your instincts, even when everyone else thinks you’re making a mistake.

• The symptoms that were repeatedly dismissed before Ross’s brain tumour was finally discovered.

• Anticipatory grief and losing someone long before they physically die.

• Hospice life, dark humour, and navigating the final weeks together.

• Why the way doctors deliver devastating news matters so much.

• Raising bereaved children with honesty, curiosity and space to ask every question.

• Neurodivergence, masking and building a life that feels authentic after loss.

What do you say when “How are you?” feels impossible to answer?

This week I’m joined by Erin Clark, whose husband Greg died suddenly from a heart attack in 2021 after more than 30 years of marriage. One moment they were enjoying a simple family dinner with their children, and the next Erin found herself performing CPR on the man she’d loved since she was 19.

In this deeply moving conversation, Erin shares the reality of losing her person overnight, the guilt she carried after falling asleep in a different room for the first time in three decades, and the crushing loneliness of learning to navigate a world that no longer made sense.

We talk about the strange business of grief, the impossible task of telling your children their father has died, and why the second year can sometimes feel even harder than the first.

Erin also shares the story behind How’s the Weather?, a simple but powerful question she created when she realised she no longer knew how to answer “How are you?”. Together we explore the idea that grief, like the weather, is constantly changing. Storms give way to sunshine, only for clouds to roll back in again.

This is a conversation about enduring love, surviving the unsurvivable, and finding your way back to life one tiny step at a time.

If you’re currently in the thick of grief, consider this your reminder that surviving today is enough.

🎧 Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of sudden death, CPR, grief, trauma and bereavement.

In this 'chatty' episode I’m joined once again by the wonderful Julie Farrin, who first appeared on Widowed AF to share the story of losing her husband Andy to glioblastoma just months after they were married.

A year on from her first appearance, we’re talking about what happens after the immediate chaos of grief. After the funeral, after the paperwork, after everyone else has gone back to their lives. What does rebuilding actually look like?

Julie opens up about losing not only her husband, but also the future they had planned together. We discuss the children they hoped to have, the difficult decisions that followed Andy’s diagnosis, and the complicated grief that comes with losing a life you thought was still ahead of you.

We also talk about widowhood without children, redundancy, identity, therapy, dating apps, panic attacks, endometriosis, hysterectomy grief, body confidence, boudoir photoshoots, yoga, friendship and learning to put yourself first after years of caring for someone else.

Along the way, we explore why so many widowed people struggle to find purpose after loss, the pressure society places on us to “move on”, and how rebuilding your life often starts with something much smaller: learning that you are worth getting out of bed for.

It’s an honest, funny and deeply moving conversation about love, loss, womanhood, friendship and discovering that life isn’t over just because everything changed.

Whether you’re newly bereaved, years down the line, or supporting someone through grief, I think you’ll find something in Julie’s story that resonates.

As always, if this episode speaks to you, I’d love to hear from you.

You can find me on Instagram at @widowed_af or visit the website at www.widowedaf.com.