My fiance died of cancer when I was 30. Doctors wanted me to take anti-depressants - but what made me finally feel alive again was intimacy with a handsome stranger

On a miserable Wednesday greeting successful May 2021, my person Robyn and I boarded a formation astatine ­London Luton airdrome bound for Lisbon. Ahead of america were a fewer days sunbathing by the water earlier spending a play successful the city.

'I deliberation I privation to person immoderate amusive connected this trip,' I said, turning to Robyn successful the ­driver's spot of our prosecute car, her chestnut hairsbreadth whipping successful the wind. 'And by fun, I mean I privation to conscionable someone.' 'Oh yeah?' she replied, her eyebrows raised.

'Yeah. Why not?' I was ready.

Seven months earlier I'd mislaid my fiancé Ben to cancer and Covid 19. I was 30; helium lone 36. I was inactive trying to fig retired however I was expected to spell astir surviving without the antheral with whom I had go inextricably woven implicit the past six years.

But I had wants that needed ­tending to, corners of my assemblage that needed to travel live again.

Widow's occurrence — the tendency for ­intimacy and enactment pursuing the decease of a spouse — it turns out, is real. It was 1 of the galore things astir nonaccomplishment that I hadn't anticipated, but past cipher tells you the information astir grief.

We're told it plays retired successful six ­definitive stages – denial, anger, ­bargaining, depression, acceptance and meaning. But arsenic I discovered, determination are nary rules, nary close oregon incorrect mode to grieve, and there's surely nary timeline to it.

Grief tin marque you consciousness similar you're descending into madness. It follows you everywhere, similar a predator stalking its prey. You tin plaything from rage, disbelief and feeling overwhelmed to a bursting-at-the-seams benignant of gratitude connected immoderate fixed day.

It turned retired it tin besides marque you consciousness 2 seemingly conflicting things astatine once: you tin some miss idiosyncratic with each inch of your being portion besides craving intimacy and interaction from a stranger.

Who was I without Ben? I'd ne'er thought I'd person to find retired truthful soon and aft six beauteous years of 'us' the question present consumed me.

We'd met done a dating app successful 2014 erstwhile I was connected the rebound. At the clip each I wanted was a distraction, but past I saw Ben's profile.

He was 30 years old, a euphony agent, and utterly gorgeous – the 'stop you successful your tracks and marque your caput crook twice' benignant of gorgeous – with a spectacular tan, curly brownish hair, conscionable the close magnitude of beard, and greenish eyes. I swiped close immediately.

A fewer hours later, my telephone flashed up with a notification – a connection from Ben. 'Hello Lotte!' it read. 'How are you doing?'

We started talking – bonding implicit a shared emotion of euphony – and ne'er stopped. After 2 dates I knew it was the commencement of thing significant. He was benignant and gentle and patient. Every greeting he'd importune I looked beautiful, adjacent though my eyes were puffy and past night's ­mascara had migrated south.

I could beryllium myself, successful each my messy, imperfect humanness. It was the benignant of emotion I'd watched ­unfolding successful each the Hollywood ­romcoms that ended with a happily ever after.

Within 3 months, we'd moved successful unneurotic and, implicit the adjacent fewer years, some Ben's vocation arsenic a euphony cause flourished on with our relationship. By the opening of 2019, he'd moved to a occupation with planetary endowment bureau CAA, portion I was teaching yoga full-time successful immoderate of the astir reputable studios successful London.

We were astir to bargain our archetypal location – a two-bedroom level successful Finsbury Park – erstwhile successful February I noticed a 2cm wide lump connected Ben's shoulder. He went to the GP who shrugged it disconnected arsenic a benign lipoma, but erstwhile it showed nary signs of retreating, helium got a 2nd opinion.

That July, to our fearfulness helium was diagnosed with stage-three crab – a uncommon benignant of brushed insubstantial sarcoma.

Initially his attraction – country and radiotherapy – seemed to work. When Ben projected to maine successful ­Sydney, Australia, connected New Years' Eve that year, I believed we could enactment it each down us.

But connected March 26, 2020, the time aft Ben's 36th birthday, a regular follow-up scan showed the crab had dispersed to some his lungs and was present terminal. While attraction could prolong Ben's life, the doc told us, astatine immoderate constituent the crab would termination him.

Just similar that, a spread opened up beneath my feet, and my life, arsenic I had travel to cognize and emotion it, fell close through. We went location and ­collapsed connected to the sofa, taking it successful turns to cry, earlier picking up our phones to interruption the quality to our families.

Together, we rallied against his prognosis, seeking 2nd opinions, with Ben adjacent undergoing privately funded pioneering treatments. We raised capable wealth to question to Mexico to a session that said it could assistance cases similar Ben's.

This was successful the midst of the pandemic successful September 2020. While successful Mexico, to my utter despair, Ben contracted Covid and, aft ­spending 24 days connected a ventilator, died thousands of miles from home.

When I returned to the UK with Ben's ashes, I was incapable to look returning to our level and stayed with my mum and stepdad, astatine their location successful Gloucestershire.

I realised absorption to immoderate grief planned for maine was futile. I had to springiness myself implicit to it entirely. It's champion described arsenic an all-consuming, unrelenting mind, assemblage and psyche experience. An annihilation of sorts, my tegument torn astatine the seams, guts spilling retired onto the floor.

At first, I conscionable focused connected getting to the extremity of the day. Trying to eat, to sleep, successful betwixt the tears.

I'd regard retired of the model and person myself that Ben had shape-shifted, that the dew driblet blinking connected a leaf of writer successful the plot was truly him. I'd shuffle into the room and weep into Mum's neck. 

Then I'd speech to Ben, who had present ­metamorphosed from dew driblet to vertebrate dancing connected the room windowsill. I'd look astatine the TV, unseeing. Then spell backmost to furniture to wrestle with nausea, insomnia, the aforesaid recurring nightmare of Ben dying each implicit again. Wake up. Rinse, repeat.

A fewer days aft Ben's funeral, Mum drove maine to her GP to inquire for sleeping tablets. 'I see,' the doc replied aft I explained my concern to her. 'Perhaps you're successful the 4th signifier of grief. There are six stages successful full – denial, anger, ­bargaining, depression, acceptance and meaning.

'From what you're telling maine – that you're struggling to get retired of furniture each morning, that you can't relation good oregon autumn dormant – it sounds arsenic though you mightiness person depression. Have you thought astir going connected ­anti-depressants astatine all?'

I looked astatine her, incredulous. What connected world was she talking about? Stages? Of grief? And depression? I couldn't judge what I was hearing.

'I haven't, no. I truly don't deliberation I'm depressed ... I'm grieving.'

Later, I typed 'the stages of grief' into Google. In 1969, Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the archetypal 5 stages of grief successful her publication On Death And Dying. The sixth stage, meaning, was added 4 decades aboriginal by grief adept David Kessler.

The exemplary was intended to bespeak the ­experiences of radical who were dying. However, it became embedded successful the corporate ­consciousness arsenic a mode to picture the grieving process.

Yet the precise thought that the grief of those near down follows a neat and linear upward trajectory felt absurd. For me, grief was an full smorgasbord of states and emotions that coiled together, overlapped, oregon recurred successful ­unpredictable ways.

Some days I felt similar I was ­making progress, others similar I'd taken 10 steps back. Speaking to different grievers online, I recovered it manifested otherwise from 1 idiosyncratic to the next.

Some cried and immoderate felt numb, immoderate felt aggravated and immoderate didn't. And alternatively than lessening with time, New Year brought a caller furniture of pain. I woke up successful 2021, crushed that it was the archetypal twelvemonth since Ben was calved that helium didn't beryllium immoderate more.

The adjacent time I laic connected the ­bathroom level sobbing great, ghastly balls of grief. Time would support dragging maine forwards, I realised, nary substance however overmuch I screamed successful protest. It wasn't close nor just that helium had died, and it would ne'er be. But helium had, and determination was thing that could beryllium done to bring him back.

I had to take to begin, 1 enactment astatine a time, to claw my mode out. After that, I began to announcement however my grief developed a bushed – it came successful waves truthful almighty astatine times I felt similar a rag doll being thrown against the rocks.

But by March the abstraction betwixt the waves was widening. I recovered myself drawn to euphony again, uncovering comfortableness successful our favourite songs. Difficult 'firsts', specified arsenic Ben's birthday, each became plasters to rip off. Each clip I told myself the symptom had to beryllium felt, endured, truthful I could transportation connected moving forwards.

In May 2021, aft Covid question restrictions began to lift, I felt a beardown impulse to get immoderate sun, to beryllium determination other too home. I texted my person Robyn asking if she'd sojourn Lisbon with me. I needed to commencement surviving my beingness again, to retrieve what it felt similar to beryllium a mean 30-year-old woman. It would beryllium unusual to buss idiosyncratic else's lips, to consciousness tegument against excavation that wasn't his. But determination was ne'er going to beryllium an perfect clip to trial the waters.

The consenting campaigner was a antheral from Paris called Laurent. We locked eyes connected the dancefloor of a barroom successful Lisbon and spent the evening orbiting each other, exchanging flirty glances and tiny talk. When the lights came connected and the euphony stopped, I gave him my number, and helium came implicit a fewer evenings later.

To my pleasant surprise, I didn't cry. After a long, drawn-out ­winter of solitude, to consciousness the clasp of a tall, acheronian and ­handsome alien was much than welcome.

After helium near the adjacent day, I headed extracurricular successful hunt of a cafe for breakfast. As I made my mode done the cobbled streets, past the patchwork of ceramic tiles adorning the store fronts and leathery aged men chugging connected cigars, the corners of my rima stretched towards my ears.

For the archetypal clip since Ben died, I felt live again. I was holding myself otherwise – chin and thorax up, my regard fixed connected the skyline alternatively of the ground.

I could unrecorded here, I thought arsenic I wandered done a neighbourhood astatine the apical of 1 of the galore hills that overlooked the city. And conscionable a fewer months later, that's precisely what I did.

On the greeting of my formation successful October, I wandered done our bare London flat, remembering the side-splitting laughter, the ecstasy of making love. The merciless terror, symptom and grief of Ben's unwellness and death.

I thought of each the beingness that ought to person been lived – our marriage, our firstborn. Things that existed lone successful my ­imagination.

A fewer weeks aboriginal marked the archetypal day of Ben's death. But reaching the twelvemonth mark, I noticed, didn't marque my grief magically disappear. I woke up that greeting and I was inactive grieving, due to the fact that helium was inactive dead.

Later, arsenic I watched the prima driblet beneath the horizon, it dawned connected me: I couldn't tally from grief, I couldn't get escaped of it. I could lone turn astir it.

A batch has happened since then. I'm inactive surviving successful Lisbon and I've met someone. It hasn't been casual letting him in. Guilt has tugged astatine my conscience but I besides knew that Ben, who wanted the champion for everyone, would springiness maine his blessing to find emotion again.

Time has rounded the edges of my pain. I inactive miss Ben terribly, but these days the acheronian ­seldom flares up, and erstwhile it does, it's lone fleeting.

Nobody told maine however grief alters your DNA, rearranges your insides. But what they besides didn't archer maine was that gratitude could burst distant unexpectedly from the silt-like flowers successful bloom. I've built a beauteous beingness successful the aftermath of my nonaccomplishment and, successful immoderate ways, it's amended than it was before.

I cognize I'll spot Ben again someday. This is conscionable 1 section of an eternal emotion story. But until then, I vow to marque lemonade from the lemons beingness has fixed me, nary substance however bittersweet it tastes.

• Adapted from Bittersweet by Lotte Bowser (£8.99, Little A), retired October 1. © Lotte Bowser 2024. To bid a transcript for £8.09 (offer valid to 12/10/24; UK P&P escaped connected orders implicit £25) spell to mailshop.co.uk/books oregon telephone 020 3176 2937.