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 friend Robyn and I boarded a formation astatine ­London Luton airdrome bound for Lisbon. Ahead of america were a fewer days sunbathing by nan water earlier spending a play successful nan city.

'I deliberation I want to person immoderate nosy connected this trip,' I said, turning to Robyn successful nan ­driver's spot of our prosecute car, her chestnut hairsbreadth whipping successful nan wind. 'And by fun, I mean I want to meet 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; he only 36. I was still trying to fig retired really I was expected to spell astir surviving without nan man pinch whom I had go inextricably woven complete nan past six years.

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

Widow's occurrence — nan desire for ­intimacy and activity pursuing nan decease of a partner — it turns out, is real. It was 1 of nan galore things astir nonaccomplishment that I hadn't anticipated, but past cipher tells you nan truth astir grief.

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

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

It turned retired it tin besides make you consciousness 2 apparently conflicting things astatine once: you tin some miss personification pinch each inch of your being while besides craving intimacy and touch from a stranger.

Who was I without Ben? I'd ne'er thought I'd person to find retired truthful soon and aft six beautiful years of 'us' nan mobility now consumed me.

We'd met done a making love app successful 2014 erstwhile I was connected nan rebound. At nan 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 – nan 'stop you successful your tracks and make your caput move twice' benignant of gorgeous – pinch a spectacular tan, curly brownish hair, conscionable nan correct magnitude of beard, and greenish eyes. I swiped correct immediately.

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

We started talking – bonding complete a shared emotion of euphony – and ne'er stopped. After 2 dates I knew it was nan commencement of thing significant. He was benignant and gentle and patient. Every greeting he'd insist I looked beautiful, moreover 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 nan benignant of emotion I'd watched ­unfolding successful each nan Hollywood ­romcoms that ended pinch a happily ever after.

Within 3 months, we'd moved successful together and, complete nan adjacent fewer years, some Ben's profession arsenic a euphony supplier flourished on pinch our relationship. By nan opening of 2019, he'd moved to a occupation pinch world talent agency CAA, while I was school yoga full-time successful immoderate of nan astir reputable studios successful London.

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

That July, to our scary he was diagnosed pinch stage-three crab – a uncommon type of soft insubstantial sarcoma.

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

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

Just for illustration that, a spread opened up beneath my feet, and my life, arsenic I had travel to cognize and emotion it, fell correct through. We went location and ­collapsed connected to nan sofa, taking it successful turns to cry, earlier picking up our phones to break nan news to our families.

Together, we rallied against his prognosis, seeking 2nd opinions, pinch Ben moreover undergoing privately funded pioneering treatments. We raised capable money to recreation to Mexico to a session that said it could thief cases for illustration Ben's.

This was successful nan midst of nan 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 nan UK pinch Ben's ashes, I was incapable to look returning to our level and stayed pinch my mum and stepdad, astatine their location successful Gloucestershire.

I realised guidance to immoderate condolences planned for maine was futile. I had to springiness myself complete 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 nan seams, courage spilling retired onto nan floor.

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

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

Then I'd talk to Ben, who had now ­metamorphosed from dew driblet to vertebrate dancing connected nan room windowsill. I'd look astatine nan TV, unseeing. Then spell backmost to furniture to wrestle pinch nausea, insomnia, nan aforesaid recurring nightmare of Ben dying each complete 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,' nan expert replied aft I explained my business to her. 'Perhaps you're successful nan 4th shape 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 usability good aliases 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 really 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 nan first 5 stages of condolences successful her book On Death And Dying. The sixth stage, meaning, was added 4 decades later by condolences master David Kessler.

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

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

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

Some cried and immoderate felt numb, immoderate felt angry and immoderate didn't. And alternatively than lessening pinch time, New Year brought a caller furniture of pain. I woke up successful 2021, crushed that it was nan first twelvemonth since Ben was calved that he didn't beryllium immoderate more.

The adjacent time I laic connected nan ­bathroom level sobbing great, ghastly balls of grief. Time would support dragging maine forwards, I realised, nary matter really overmuch I screamed successful protest. It wasn't correct nor adjacent that he had died, and it would ne'er be. But he had, and location was thing that could beryllium done to bring him back.

I had to take to begin, 1 activity astatine a time, to claw my measurement out. After that, I began to announcement really my condolences developed a hit – it came successful waves truthful powerful astatine times I felt for illustration a rag doll being thrown against nan rocks.

But by March nan abstraction betwixt nan 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 nan symptom had to beryllium felt, endured, truthful I could transportation connected moving forwards.

In May 2021, aft Covid recreation restrictions began to lift, I felt a beardown impulse to get immoderate sun, to beryllium location other too home. I texted my friend Robyn asking if she'd sojourn Lisbon pinch me. I needed to commencement surviving my life again, to retrieve what it felt for illustration to beryllium a normal 30-year-old woman. It would beryllium unusual to buss personification else's lips, to consciousness tegument against excavation that wasn't his. But location was ne'er going to beryllium an perfect clip to trial nan waters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I thought of each nan life that ought to person been lived – our marriage, our firstborn. Things that existed only successful my ­imagination.

A fewer weeks later marked nan first day of Ben's death. But reaching nan twelvemonth mark, I noticed, didn't make my condolences magically disappear. I woke up that greeting and I was still grieving, because he was still dead.

Later, arsenic I watched nan sun driblet beneath nan horizon, it dawned connected me: I couldn't tally from grief, I couldn't get free of it. I could only turn astir it.

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

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

Nobody told maine really condolences alters your DNA, rearranges your insides. But what they besides didn't show maine was that gratitude could burst distant unexpectedly from nan silt-like flowers successful bloom. I've built a beautiful life successful nan 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 make lemonade from nan lemons life has fixed me, nary matter really 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 free connected orders complete £25) spell to mailshop.co.uk/books aliases telephone 020 3176 2937.