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 he was 42 years old. Shortly before that, Tessa’s partner, Josh, died at the age of 28 of a sudden death after exercising together.
They met in a grief group. That is why they would have liked not to have met, or in any case, not in this way. Then they add: “But how lucky to have done it!”. In addition to becoming great friends, they created the Clubde les Vi(u)des together, which started as an Instagram profile – today, with 8,000 followers – it is already a digital community that offers resources and support spaces.
Tessa Harry: We are uncomfortable with death. The pain of other people becomes very heavy for us to bear. We turn our backs on him, we say: “Let’s not talk about it, let’s take care of ourselves, let’s solve it quickly, and that’s it.” Instead of normalizing it, a pressure is imposed to overcome it and to be well again. In my case it was “back to work”. I was working with Josh, it was our joint project. For me going back to work meant going back to his office as he had left it a few days before, it was a very painful thing. 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 explain that I wasn’t depressed, that I didn’t need medication, that I was grieving and that what I was feeling 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 already beginning to silence my pain”. As if, after a while, you had to overcome it. Then you realize that what you learn is to live with that loss, to transform it. But not to overcome it. I can go to a concert, have an illusion, laugh, fall in love, but I won’t turn a page. Because that is part of who I am now.
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 need to know? He must have done a master’s degree in grief.” It turned out that he had also lost his partner. That was like a slap in the face, because I said, “It happened to her and she’s not lost. Is here”.
T.H.: I didn’t know anyone who had gone through the same thing. I had the idea that she was very young to be a widow. I thought everyone in the bereavement group would be 78 and older. And no. Also, I had the need to read about this. To look for answers. Montse and I would send each other sentences or fragments of series or films that resonated with us.
M.C.: The idea of ??the Vi(u)des Club came about because we both followed profiles of widows on Instagram, especially from the Anglo-Saxon world. There was nothing in Spanish. I remember reading, for example, the story of a woman from Los Angeles who had gone through the same thing. She put into words things that happened to me that I didn’t know how to explain or that I 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 it is. We’ll say it out loud so we all know.” So we created the Instagram profile, a dialog was generated.
T.H.: There is not so much about us. And, despite the fact that it is a public profile, people open up a lot. They respond without judgment and with great respect.
M.C.: When you start not judging others, you stop judging yourself, because we are our own worst judges.
T.H.: Sharing grief with other people allows you to feel identified. Talk about what makes you ashamed. Don’t feel like a crazy person. The Vi(u)des Club is a community with people from different places, professions, ages, life moments and times of mourning. With or without children. The ingredients change, but the vacuum is the same. What unites us is that we are all there for love. If there is pain it is because there was love before.
T. H. Can you think about love again? Yes, sure. Yes, sure. Who says you can only love once?
M.C.: You can yearn at the same time as you can have an illusion. you are alive you are here
