She spent her days either in the garden, doing housework, decorating, and looking through old photos of Earl and listening to his reggae music.
Her sons, and friends, kept in touch with phone calls but she was unable to work Zoom and other methods that some people were able to use.
“All I could think about was Earl. I kept reliving him dying, I was feeling guilty – I kept asking could I have done more, did I give it [Covid] to him?
“Everybody was phoning me initially – but it does quieten down.”
Her thoughts, she said, did turn to suicide.
“Life seemed pointless.
“I’m not on my own in that respect. I did get to a bad point but a friend reminded me about my sons, how would my sons have felt, and that sort of stopped me.
“We’d been together 50 years. It would have been our ruby wedding on 30 July.
“All the landmarks, birthdays and Christmas where you have to face empty chair syndrome.
“Thousands of people have gone through the same, and we are all still carrying on.
“People say time a is a great healer but 16 months on – its not.”
