'Remind yourself you can see the sunshine and you can have fun.'

by Helen Fielding - journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and creator of Bridget Jones

Remind yourself you can see the sunshine and you can have fun, then the muddy puddles get further and further apart. Every time you come out of them, you’re practicing being alright again

Bridget is known for being a bit of a mess, for being funny and liking wine, and never getting anything quite right. How does that person cope when Mark Darcy dies and nobody knows quite what to say or do?  

Bridget’s dad asks her, ‘Can you survive?’ That's the bottom line when you have got kids depending on you; how are you going to get the lot of you through this? The doctor says to her, ‘Your children are going to be fine because they know that they’re loved.’ That is important. Bridget very much includes them in what's going on. It's like a constant. 

If you’re a bereaved parent, you are wracked with guilt the entire time, so whenever they do or say something that all children do, you think it's because their parent has died; often it isn't - they’re just being children.

After Mark Darcy dies, Bridget spends four years in her sweatpants feeling terrible with mad hair, just trying to focus on the children and loving them. If something like this happens it's going to be a hot mess, but as long as there’s lots of love going round and lots of emotional honesty and support, it will be ok. 

Bridget’s son Billy says to her: ‘I wish we lived in a normal family like Vikram,’ and she goes into paroxysms, ‘Oh Billy, I’m so sorry,’ and he says, ‘No, what I mean is that Vikram’s allowed to play Xbox in the week.’ It’s very humanising that the children don't stop being obsessed with video games, they’re just worried about what's immediately in front of them. 

Then they’ll suddenly ask out of the blue, ‘Mummy, where is Daddy? I mean where actually is he?’ They ask these giant existential questions and then say, ‘Oh by the way, have you remembered there's a packed lunch tomorrow?’ They’re so literal and random. I think that children don't want to be different, they don't want to be the kid at school whose dad died, so you've got to respect that and not necessarily label them with it. 

There’s all this thing about the five stages of grief. That was not my experience, I did not move smoothly through five stages of anything, and neither did my kids as far as I could see. 

I got some really good advice from Child Bereavement UK which was at the front of my mind when I wrote the book and I looked at your website and support materials, so I was very much taking information from your organisation throughout the process, which was very helpful. 

I think the analogy of grief being like muddy puddles seemed realer to me: one minute it’s all dark and nothing will ever be alright again, and then you come out and you’re like, ‘Oh wait, actually I do feel alright today, we can be funny and we can laugh about things.’ It's really important not to feel bad about that, not to feel that you can't be caught giggling in the park or having a nice time because there sure as hell is another dark muddy puddle coming. So, when you’re out of it, you need to gather strength by reminding yourself you can see the sunshine and you can still have fun, and then the muddy puddles get further and further apart. Every time you come out of them, you’re practicing being alright again. 

Follow Helen on Instagram @helenfielding

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