Starting Over (Again): A Story I Never Thought I’d Have to Write

There are sentences you never expect to say in your life.

One of mine is:

“My husband, the love of my life died of bloody cancer.”

I know… elegant wording, right?

But honestly, there’s no polite, blog-friendly way to say it.

Losing him was like someone unplugged the world. Everything dimmed. Everything slowed. Everything-life, business, bills, responsibility-kept moving forward, while I stood there emotionally holding a broken charger.

And I’m not going to pretend I handled it gracefully.

I fell apart. Properly.

My business fell apart with me.

Not because I didn’t care, but because depression doesn’t send calendar reminders like,

“Hi love, don’t forget your business licence renewal xx.”

I didn’t know what to do, who to email, what deadlines to remember… or honestly, how to breathe without checking that I was still breathing.

I was a mum and a widow trying to survive on autopilot. And autopilot doesn’t run businesses.

There were two months - one of those months that felt like a whole year - when my daughter and I found ourselves standing in line at a small church around the corner.

Not because we suddenly became saints (far from it).

But because we needed food.

I remember thinking, “Well… this isn’t exactly what my life vision board had on it.”

But there we were, my daughter holding my hand, both of us pretending we were on some kind of secret mission.

The lovely church ladies greeted us like we were VIP guests, even though my hair definitely suggested otherwise.

They handed my daughter a packet of biscuits, and she whispered to me,

“Mum, these are the fancy ones… we should come here more often.”

And somehow, in that moment - standing between the tins of beans and the donation bread - I realised something:

We weren’t broken.

We weren’t failing.

We were rebuilding.

Quietly, imperfectly, one borrowed biscuit at a time.

And I promised myself that one day, we’d look back at that moment the same way you look at an old photo:

with softness… and a little pride for the people we were becoming.

But here’s the part of the story where things quietly shift.

Last year - for reasons I still can’t explain - something in me clicked.

Not a big dramatic movie moment.

Just a tiny whisper saying:

“Get up.”

Get up for my daughter.

Get up for myself.

Get up because apparently the universe wasn’t finished with me yet.

So I started again.

From scratch.

With three dogs, a child who is half sunshine / half dramatic Disney princess, and a cup of cold coffee that I reheated three times a day.

I got a job.

I learned how to function again.

And I returned to something I had abandoned for almost ten years - a book I started writing before life got messy.

A middle-grade fantasy novel.

My magic place.

My escape.

My bit of light.

And somehow - between work, school runs, grief waves, dog chaos, and feeding every stray cat within a 5-mile radius -

I finished it.

I FINISHED IT.

I think somewhere in the middle of all the loss and exhaustion, a small part of me realised something important:

I can’t give my daughter her old life back.

But I can build us a new one.

A quieter one.

A gentler one.

A braver one.

One made of stories, small joys, big dreams, and the kind of strength you only grow when you have absolutely no choice.

So here we are.

Starting again.

Still tired.

Still healing.

Still laughing sometimes at absolutely nothing.

And still moving toward a life that feels like ours.

If you’re reading this and you’ve lost something - someone, a business, a version of yourself - I hope you hear this:

You are allowed to fall apart.

You are allowed to start again.

You are allowed to be a masterpiece and a mess at the same time.

I am.

And I’m still here.

Still trying.

Still dreaming bigger than my fear.

And still building a better life for the girl who calls me Mum.