Illustrations by Kathrin Jacobsen

Right after D. died I remember people being amazed that I wasn’t hiding under the duvet crying all day. It’s not like that. You get up. You get your child up. You even eat. Eating suddenly becomes a very functional thing. It becomes part of surviving. The day carries on. You brush your teeth. You have a shower. You get dressed. Get dressed… D. died on a hot summer day in July. Being 36 weeks pregnant, I dressed in a loose maternity dress. The same one I wore four days previously when D. was still alive. I put on strappy sandals and left the house. I looked the same but I would never be the same person again. I knew from the moment when the ambulance arrived and cut open D.’s t-shirt, jokingly saying: “I hope it’s not your favourite”. It was my daughter’s favourite t-shirt. Every time he wore ‘the chicken t-shirt’ she would shriek out in delight. Cuddled up in bed with me, when her Daddy would come out of the shower throwing ‘the chicken t-shirt’ at her – she would throw it back him laughing out in delight. Then the chicken t-shirt was cut up. Later on I couldn’t find it anymore as someone probably thought it best for it to go in the bin. I was never gonna be the same again. I simply looked the same.

Driving my daughter to nursery three days after D. died – I wished for the first time I looked different so everyone would know what happened and I didn’t have to explain. Didn’t have to explain why I would suddenly cry. The painful look on people’s faces when you do have to explain what has happened because no one had told them yet. A builder shouting ‘Cheer up love’ when I was walking my daughter to nursery carrying my baby in a sling. He didn’t know. How could he. Widows don’t have babies in slings and wear summer dresses. Widows hide under the duvet. So how do you spot a widow?

Like lots of times I was pushing my daughter on the swings while she would shout ‘Higher Mummy – higher! All the way to the sky and the stars. All the way to Papa!’ when I felt the look by a mum next to me. I didn’t bother explaining. She would probably end up telling me how brave and strong I was and how I didn’t look like a widow. From the corner of my eyes I saw another mum pushing her child on the swings. The woman wore a full burka and I truly envied her. Envied her for her own hiding place. Most people don’t try to do chitchat with someone in a full burka. That’s when I thought maybe it’s not such a bad tradition to wear mourning clothes. Victorian widows were expected to wear a black dress for at least two years. Maybe its not such a bad idea that people see what happened to you and that you are not the same person anymore. It feels like we are trying to free ourselves from traditions and rituals. But all we long for is some sort of manual on what to do next.

Society seems to simply ignore the fact that people die. Endless times have I sat on our little local bus when it stops at a red light right next to a funeral service. Open coffins in the window. You can tell how uncomfortable everyone feels – while my daughter whispers in my ear ‘when I die I want a pink one’. As a society we clearly have lost touch with the basic traditions and rituals that come with death. When tragedy strikes, you cling onto any form of normality just to get through the day. Any guide you swallow right up. Some days I wish I could emerge from under the duvet to open my wardrobe and take that Victorian gown, walk out and be that widow. And then other days I am glad I can escape my world by dressing up and be not that kind of widow everyone is expecting.