'Grief after husband's death like a stone in my pocket'

"He died in his sleep and that was perfect - he wasn't frightened," said Jo Relf. "But... you don't expect that on a Friday morning."

Jo's husband John passed away in April 2025 aged 42 - just eight months after being diagnosed with the degenerative neurological condition Motor Neurone Disease (MND).

The 52-year-old, from Rainham in Kent, said connecting with others who have also lost partners helped her navigate her grief.

"They are the only people who can ever say to me, I know what it's like. No one else knows," she said.

"It's not the same as having your mum or your dad die. It's not the same as getting divorced."

Jo married John, a Gillingham Football Club season-ticket holder, in 2015.

He was diagnosed with MND after suffering a fall and mobility issues, but continued working for as long as he could.

Jo said she woke one morning to find he had died beside her in the night.

"Grief's like a stone in your pocket," she said. "It doesn't get any smaller, it just gets easier to hold. It's there all the time."

Rosie Moss, from West Malling, became a widow when her husband Ben disappeared during a scuba diving trip off the Kent coast in 2018.

His body was never recovered.

"It was a cataclysmic shock," she said.

"I was angry with him. I was angry that he'd gone into the water when he didn't feel well. I was angry with him for doing a stupid dangerous hobby."

But the 45-year-old said the anger was "not real".

"It was somewhere I could put all those feelings," she explained.

Ben and Rosie had been married for nearly 10 years and had three children, including one who was just six months old when he died.

She said Ben was the main earner and she was on maternity leave at the time.

"It felt incredibly precarious," said Rosie. "I remember being genuinely frightened about how I was going to pay the mortgage... and feed the children."

Both Rosie and Jo said they found support through the Widowed Collective, a group for anyone who has lost a life partner.

Natalie Bolton, co-founder of the group, said that "often after six months of losing your partner, people think you should be moving on".

"They stop calling around, they stop really considering that actually for a widow, the loss goes on and on," she said.

Rosie added: "My world is still shattered.

"Find your tribe, reach out. As soon as I did, I just felt like I'd been welcomed with open arms.

"It's a terrible club to be in, but the other members are quite nice."

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