“I wish we hadn’t met. At least not in this way”, say Montse Clotet (47) and Tessa Harry (35) on their website. Almost five years ago, Aleix, Montse’s husband and father of her two children, died of cancer when she was 42 years old. Shortly before, Tessa’s partner, Josh, died of sudden death at the age of 28 after exercising together.
They met in a grief group. That’s why they would have liked not to know each other, or at least not in that way. Then they qualify: “But how lucky to have done it!”. In addition to becoming great friends, they created the Club de las Vi(u)das together, which began as an Instagram profile -which today has some 8,000 followers- and is now a digital community that offers different resources and support spaces. The illustrator and the psychologist answer questions from La Vanguardia and explain why it is important to give voice to loss in a society that tends to silence it.
Do we talk very little about death?
Tessa Harry: Death makes us uncomfortable. The pain of other people is very heavy for us to bear. We turn our backs on it, we say to ourselves: “let’s not talk, let’s medicate, let’s solve it quickly, and that’s it”. Instead of normalizing it, there is pressure to overcome it and to get back to being well quickly. In my case it was “go back to work”. I worked with Josh, it was our joint project. For me, going back to work meant finding his office just as he had left it a few days before, it was something very painful. For the death of a partner you only have two days of work leave. I had taken medical leave, and every week I had to go explain that I was not depressed, that I did not need medication, that I was grieving and that the way I felt was normal.
Montse Clotet: It is very difficult for us to talk about death. A girl once wrote to us saying: “three years have passed and my environment is beginning to silence my pain.” As if, after a while, you already have to get over it. Later you realize that what you learn is to live with that loss, to transform it. But not to get over it. I can go to a concert, have an illusion, laugh, fall in love, but I’m not going to turn the page. Because that is part of the person I am now.
What was it like dealing with that loss?
M.C.: When Aleix died I was lost. A friend recommended I go to a grief group. In the first meeting I had with one of the moderators I thought: “What does she know? She will have done a dueling master’s degree ”. It turned out that she had also lost her partner. That was like a slap in the face, because I said: “it happened to her and she is not lost. She’s here “.
TH: I didn’t know anyone who had gone through the same thing. She had the idea that she was too young to be a widow. She thought that everyone in the grief group was going to be 78 years old and up. And it was not so. In addition to the dueling group, he had a need to read about it. To search for answers. With Montse we sent phrases or fragments of series or films that resonated with us.
How did the idea for the Widows Club come about?
M.C.: We both followed profiles of widows on Instagram, especially from the Anglo-Saxon world. In Spanish we couldn’t find anything. I remember coming across, for example, the story of a woman from Los Angeles who had been through the same thing. She put into words things that happened to me and that I didn’t know how to explain or that she thought were not normal. And you say: “If it’s something that also happens to a woman on the other side of the world, maybe it’s because she really is. Let’s say it out loud so we all know.” As soon as we created the Instagram profile, a dialogue began to be generated. In each post, there are many different voices that accompany each other, speak to each other. You even find questions like: “does anyone know how to change the ownership of the car?” And there is someone who explains. It wasn’t just us posting.
TH: Actually, there’s not that much about us. And, even though it’s a public profile, people open up a lot. They are answered without judgment and with great respect.
M.C.: When you start not to judge others in some way, you stop judging yourself, because we are our own worst judges.
Is there a lot of guilt?
TH: We have seen guilt for so many things. “I’m not working”, “I’ve had a great time” or “I didn’t think about him yesterday”. There is also guilt for “I don’t cry, why don’t I cry?” Or, the other way around: “I cry all the time”. When you listen to other people’s stories you realize that the same thing happens to them. That helps you be kinder to yourself.
MC: Reading and commenting on things, we realize that in something as hard as what we are going through, everything is fine, because we are doing the best we can.
Is it important to share the grief with other people?
TH: It allows you to feel identified. Talk about what makes you ashamed. Do not feel crazy about what is happening to you. The Club de las Vi(u)das is a community with people from different places, professions, ages, vital moments and times of mourning. With or without children. With different deaths. The ingredients change, but the absence and the void is the same. What unites us is that we are all there for love. If there is pain it is because before there was love.
M.C.: Sharing helps you realize that you are not the only one and that you are not doing it wrong. You are doing what you can. There were many of us without much response, without much help or accompaniment because, although there are beginning to be grief groups, there are few specific grief groups. They are usually accompanying the loss in general. But one loss is very different from another.
What makes it different from other losses?
TH: It is different because of what the person represents in your life. It is a life project. Suddenly, you lose your partner and you have to go from being part of a “we” to being just me. The plans you had with him are gone. It is the mourning of what has been and what will no longer be. Also your identity. You start to ask yourself “who am I?”, “What do I like?”, because perhaps what I wanted before is now no longer. In turn, there is the physical part, of intimacy and desire. Wondering that I hug you.
M.C.: It is the loss of the partner with whom you had planned to build your life. That does not mean that it is better or worse, or easier or more difficult than others, but longing is different. All the life we ??thought will never be. I had never imagined planning vacations by myself with my children.
“Widows also dance” says one of your posts on Instagram. In mourning, are there also spaces for enjoyment?
M.C.: It is not a linear process. You go through many states. You have anger, pain, sadness and at the same time connection with life… everything coexists at the same time. You laugh, you miss your partner a lot, you dance, you work, you draw, you cook, you clean the bathroom. All this in the same day. And nothing happens. It is that death often connects us even more with life, because you become more aware of its fragility. Change the value you give to some things and the value you don’t give to others.
TH: It gives you another perspective. You find yourself thanking a beautiful sunset, a good meal or conversation. You ask yourself: what do I want to prioritize? Where and to whom do I want to dedicate my energy? These are very important things that we often forget, because we are so immersed in the “I have to” or the “I should…” We have never felt so dead and so alive at the same time. That is why we decided to put the ‘u’ of widows in parentheses, so that it could also be read as “lives”. First, because the word widow was very difficult for us, because it has this burden or prejudice of the widow in black, in mourning, that she is never going to fall in love or go out to a party. But also because we are alive.
How is the bureaucracy behind the loss of a loved one?
M.C.: I have many gaps after Aleix’s death. I was lucky that I have a lawyer friend who took me and took me to the notary, to the manager, to the bank. If it weren’t for her, I don’t think I would have arranged any of her roles. It is very unfair that you have to depend on someone to help you, and that it is not all that much easier.
Does time help?
M.C.: Time in mourning exists and does not exist. It is necessary for time to pass to process things, but we do not have to set time. Yes, it is true that it helps to place. It made me very angry that they told me “this is time”. But something they told me, which did go very well for me, was that with time all this pain is going to turn into love again. And it is true. Of course there is longing and I carry it with me. But that tear, that pain from the beginning, I no longer have it.
TH: It is being able to talk about him with a smile without it hurting and being grateful for what he has experienced.
What phrases is better to avoid saying to someone who is going through a duel?
T.H.: We never give answers of the type “what will go well for you…”. In general, it is better to avoid all the “you have to…”.
M.C.: We don’t give recipes. Because they are just opinions.
What other things is better not to say?
M.C.: The “you have to be strong” is very hard. Or the “you have to do it for your children”. There is also a tendency in the world of accompaniment in mourning to think that everything happens for a reason and that everything that happens is for us to learn something. There are people who use this perspective and therefore it is super good. Anything that helps us is welcome. But that doesn’t work for us. In life things happen and if, with a bit of luck, we can learn something from it, that’s great. But nothing happens to us so that we learn, nor is it that from now on everything will be fine.
TH: What have I learned from this? Yes. That in many ways I like the way I am now? Also. But he didn’t die for me to learn something. Also, the “you will find someone” or the “you are very young, you have a lot to live for”. Anyway, all these phrases have to do with something cultural, I’ve probably said them before too. In the end, it is a bit about validating what is happening to us, listening to ourselves.
How can it be accompanied in the best way?
M.C.: A mother wrote to us to tell us that reading to us helped her understand what her son, a widower, was going through, and to be able to accompany him without pressure. Sometimes there is the fear of hurting, of not knowing how to express yourself. It’s not easy to accompany at that moment, I don’t know how she would have done it. It is difficult because we embodied the pain. And having pain having a coffee with you is not the easiest thing. Instead, many were. I have friends with whom I feel at home because they knew Aleix, regardless of whether or not they understand my grief. There are people who have been very patient with us. It is also true that there is another that is no longer in our lives. And then wonderful new people have appeared along the way who, despite all this pain, have not been afraid to reach out and have been great “floaters” for us.
T.H.: The support of friends and family is super important. They are also in mourning. We miss the same person but in different ways. And it’s nice to be able to miss him with people who knew him.
Can you think about love again?
TH: Yes, of course. Who says you can only love once? The person who has died is part of who you are and of your life and at the same time this does not mean that you cannot fall in love again, share, connect and enjoy. I am now in a relationship.
M.C.: Just because that person is part of you doesn’t mean you can’t fall in love, dance, laugh or have a relationship. You can yearn at the same time that you can have an illusion. You are alive. Are you here.
