By Helene Waters
Friday, 19 June 2026.
The day started off really well.
I was in high spirits.
I had my weekend planned.
Sort of.
Then I received a phone call that knocked the wind right out of my sails.
Let’s backtrack just a little.
My late husband, Barry, for as long as I can remember, was certain of two things:
- He would be dead before he was 50.
- His body would be donated to science.
In 1998, when Barry and I were barely human (because honestly, you’re only really human at 25, right?), we started dating.
I was 18.
He was 20.
Around our third or fourth date, he very seriously told me that he wouldn’t live past 50.
It wasn’t a once-off comment.
He repeated it when our daughter was born in 2006.
He repeated it several times after his initial cancer diagnosis in 2016.
And the body donation?
That was something he said probably a million times.
He wanted his body donated to science.
He wanted something good to come from his death.
And somehow, both of those things came true.
Barry died at 46 on 24 July 2024.
Two days later, on 26 July 2024, his body was transported to Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Blantyre.
I thought after nearly two years, I would be prepared for the call.
I expected it.
I knew it would come.
I thought I would be okay.
Instead, what happened was that one sentence threatened to open me up, gut me like a bloody fish, and leave me gasping for air.
“Mrs Waters, we have completed our studies on your late husband’s body. He will be cremated on Monday. Please may you send us a copy of his identification and death certificate for the purpose of legal paperwork.”
He will be cremated.
On Monday.
Boom.
Cue freight train.
Whenever people hear that someone donated their body to science, the response is usually the same.
“What a noble thing to do.”
And it is.
It absolutely is.
It is generous.
It is selfless.
It is a final contribution to medicine and learning.
But there is another side that people don’t always talk about.
The waiting.
As the spouse or medical proxy, you are told it can take upwards of 16 months before you receive the remains or ashes, depending on what you choose.
And then you wait.
You spend the better part of two years healing.
Finding yourself.
Trying to move forward.
Learning how to exist in a world where the person who shared so much of your life is no longer physically here.
But somewhere in the background, there is this niggling feeling.
An open-ended loop.
A chapter that hasn’t fully closed.
Because while Barry had died, there was still something waiting.
A final step.
A final goodbye.
And when that loop finally closes?
It hurts.
It hurts like hell.
Because grief is strange.
You can spend nearly two years learning how to live without someone.
You can laugh again.
You can make plans.
You can create a life.
You can move forward.
And then one sentence can take you right back.
Not because you haven’t healed or because you have gone backwards.
But because some endings are heavier than others.
I should probably acknowledge something else.
My writing today is slightly messy.
And this is not the blog I had planned to publish.
But as expectedly and unexpectedly as the call came, so did the birth of this blog.
Some stories choose when they want to be written.
This one chose today.
I am writing this with blurry vision because my eyes simply will not stop leaking.
They have leaked for most of the day since 9:59am.
And for the first time in my life, I did something extraordinary.
I told people I wasn’t okay.
Not the usual:
“I’m fine.”
The version where you say the words while secretly falling apart.
I actually admitted it.
And what I received in return was something I didn’t expect.
Love.
Understanding.
Kindness.
My managing director kindly allowed me to leave work early.
My colleagues saw I wasn’t doing well and stepped in without hesitation to pick up the slack.
The head administrator came to my classroom, checked on me and helped carry my bags to my car.
They didn’t expect me to be stronger.
They didn’t ask me to push through.
They simply helped.
After Barry died, I spiralled.
Badly.
I locked my emotions away.
I thought I had to be emotionally strong.
I thought strength meant carrying everything deep inside and not letting people see.
In case they didn’t know how to handle it.
In case my pain became one more thing they had to carry.
In case it hurt them more because they were hurting too.
I thought I had to be the person who held everything together.
But today I realised something.
Sometimes there is strength in saying:
“I am not okay today.
But I will be soon.
Just give me a minute.”
So yes, my heart, as I write this, is bruised more than normal.
Today hurt.
Today felt heavier.
And while I am strong — I know I am — today I allowed myself not to be.
I allowed myself to feel the weight of the moment.
I allowed myself to admit that this was hard.
And that is perfectly okay too.
Because perhaps strength is not always about standing tall.
Perhaps sometimes strength is knowing when you need to sit down for a moment, breathe, and let someone else stand beside you.
And maybe that is the strangest part of grief. It is not always the loss itself that breaks you. Sometimes it is those moments when the world reminds you that the loss is real.
Monday will not change the fact that Barry died almost two years ago.
It will not erase the healing.
It will not erase the life I have rebuilt.
But it will mark the moment when the final physical piece of that chapter comes home.
And perhaps that is why it hurts.
Because closure sounds peaceful.
But sometimes closure is not a gentle closing of a door.
Sometimes it is standing there as the door finally clicks shut…
And realising just how much of your life was on the other side.
Cheese & Jam 
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