Just hours before Boris Johnson announced that the UK would be going into lockdown, Emma Charlesworth went on a walk with her husband, Charlie, and their 10-year-old daughter Rebekah.
They took a selfie of their smiling faces, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to befall their family.
Emma met Stuart ‘Charlie’ Charlesworth when she was just 15, on the terraces of her football team, Sittingbourne F.C.
Just friends, they finally became a couple just before her 18th birthday party. They married in 2005 and had a daughter, Rebekah, in 2010.
Emma, 42, from Kent, says: ‘Charlie was one of life’s good guys. He was fiercely loyal and would do anything for anyone. He had the attitude that life was to be lived. He really was full of life.
‘He was in a band, and a part-time photographer, but being a dad was his biggest – and best – role. He adored Rebekah and they were ridiculously close.’
During that first week of lockdown, Charlie – who was fit and healthy, with no underlying conditions – developed a fever. Back then, so early into the pandemic, there was no free testing – at home, or otherwise. Charlie didn’t have a cough, but soon, he became breathless and delusional, and Emma called an ambulance.
Covid restrictions meant Emma had to stay behind as Charlie was taken to hospital.
‘At 4:30am, he walked down the stairs with three paramedics, and we never saw him again,’ says Emma.
At hospital, he was placed into intensive care, hooked up to a ventilator for three weeks. Emma and Rebekah were able to Skype call with Charlie for about 10 minutes per day for the final weeks of his life – he was unconscious during the calls.
‘There were a couple of days where his eyes were open, and we could only hope that he could hear us and knew just how loved he was,’ says Emma.
Then on April 19, Emma was offered the opportunity to go into the hospital, and say goodbye to her husband. ‘They didn’t have enough PPE for both me and Rebekah,’ says Emma. ‘If I went in, I’d have to go alone, and then isolate from Rebekah for a week afterwards – there was no way I could do that.’
Later that day, Charlie passed away, aged 45. At 39, Emma became a widow. Due to the restrictions, only 10 people were allowed at his funeral, and there was no wake.
For Emma and Rebekah, there was little escape from their grief.
Emma says: ‘It became Rebekah and me against the world. We were stuck at home, with no distractions – apart from Rebekah, nobody hugged me for three months.’
As restrictions were relaxed – and news of Covid faded away from the headlines – life got a little easier, but each milestone without Charlie was another challenge to overcome.
Emma says: ‘In August 2021, we had tickets to Carfest. It was an event we always went to with Charlie, and the day before I just freaked out. I didn’t think I could do it without him.’
After Charlie’s death, Emma had begun sharing her journey online – writing a blog and sharing on Instagram. Struggling with the anxiety of Carfest, she shared her feelings on the online platform.
Then, a message popped up: “You can do it, because I did.”
The message was from Emma Gray, a connection Emma had made through Widowed and Young (WAY), the charity that supports those widowed under the age of 51.
Emma Gray’s husband, Simon, had been a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Marines. She’d met him while still at university, through mutual friends. “I say I met him because he climbed up a drainpipe,” Emma, 46, from Somerset, laughs.
‘After a night out, a group of us went back to my flat, and my housemate had locked us out. Simon climbed up the drainpipe, and before I knew it, he was opening the front door from the inside.’
Soon, romance blossomed. ‘We’d talk for hours on the phone,’ says Emma. ‘He had blonde hair and blue eyes and was the world’s most optimistic, smiley person.’
Emma and Simon went onto marry five years later, in 2005, and have two daughters, Olivia, 15, and Sophie, 13.
‘He was a frustratingly amazing dad,’ says Emma. ‘He had so much energy. I have this lovely memory of him and the kids snuggled up in front of CBBC, and they were all just blissfully happy.’
Emma says her husband would have been in the Royal Marines until retirement, had it not been for a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer in 2013.
She says: “He began experiencing acid reflux and difficulty swallowing in February 2013. As a Marine, he wasn’t the type to go to the doctors, but finally in November he had trouble eating a roast dinner that I’d pureed for him.
‘I convinced him to go to A&E, where he was told he needed an endoscopy. It was the first time that someone said cancer could be a possibility.’
Simon was later diagnosed with a primary tumour in his oesophagus which had spread to his lymph nodes and the lining of his stomach.
‘Simon didn’t want to know his prognosis,’ says Emma. ‘But I Googled it. It was about seven months. As a Marine, his death had always been a possibility – but I’d presumed that if he died young it would have been in a war zone.’
In terms of treatment, Emma says they ‘threw the book’ at Simon. Despite ‘brutal’ chemotherapy and radiotherapy he kept working for as long as he could – he even completed a Masters degree that was part of a recent promotion.
But in the summer of 2016, Simon went to a hospice – run by a charity who had been giving him care in the community – for pain management medication. This was where he died, aged 38, on July 11.
Emma says: ‘I didn’t know that I would feel so physically heartbroken. My heart hurt. I literally felt like my insides had fallen out. I felt so alone without him.
‘With Simon working away, the girls and I would often be a family threesome sat around the dinner table. But suddenly, his absence felt so obvious.’
Emma says she signed up to WAY shortly after Simon’s death, but left because she ‘didn’t want to be a widow’. Instead, she turned to her family for support – specifically her mum, dad and sister – as well as military charities, including the Royal Marines Charity.
But in lockdown – four years after Simon died – Emma began to struggle once more. She says: ‘I had a bit of a crisis. The pandemic was triggering for those that had dealt with loss – there was so much talk of death – the grief really came back up to the surface.’
Emma rejoined WAY, and followed their social media accounts. By then, the ‘other’ Emma, Emma Charlesworth, was active in the charity, and so she started following her on social media.
Emma Gray says: ‘On Instagram, Emma would upload something everyday that she was thankful for.
‘I run a grief and life coaching business, Rainbow Hunting, and the philosophy behind that is to always look for the rainbows in a storm. I felt that Emma and I had a similar mindset.’
It was Emma Charlesworth’s post about Carfest that Emma Gray saw, and felt compelled to respond.
She says: ‘We’d also done Carfest when Simon was alive – and we had tickets for the festival a month after he died.
‘So when Emma was talking about the anxiety of going, I knew exactly how she felt.’
Emma Gray was able to convince Emma Charlesworth to go and, amongst the crowds of people there, they managed to find each other.
‘There was just something about her,’ says Emma Gray. ‘I knew she was just my kind of person. There was an immediate spark of understanding.’
Emma Charlesworth agrees: ‘From the first time we met, I felt completely at home with her.’
From then on, the two women became close. They’ve met up at WAY events in Cardiff and Glasgow – amongst others – and Emma Charlesworth took Rebekah to stay with Emma Gray at her home in Somerset.
For Emma Charlesworth, a treasured moment in their friendship took place at the WAY AGM in Bristol this year.
Emma Charlesworth says: ‘I was nominated for an award for my blog, I remember holding Emma’s hand, really needing her support. I couldn’t believe it when I’d won! A few hours earlier, we’d attended a talk and one of the speaker’s was particularly triggering for Emma, and I was the one holding her hand.
‘It’s a good metaphor for our friendship – we hold onto each other.’
But their friendship goes beyond the shared experiences of losing their husbands. Emma Gray says ‘The times we spend together are magic – full of tears, laughter, shots and dancing.
‘She is so open and honest, and I can be 100% my true self with her. She wears her heart on her sleeve. We are soul mates in a way – we found each other, and it just works.’
Emma Charlesworth says: ‘Emma is a bundle of energy, positivity and enthusiasm – she really does look for rainbows.
‘I don’t think she has a bad bone in her body, and she has a wicked sense of humour. If someone listened to our conversations, they’d think we were being so inappropriate!’
Emma Charlesworth adds: ‘We often say, we wish we’d never met – but we’re so glad we did.
‘I wish I could change what happened to us, but it’s very bittersweet, because I now can’t imagine my life without Emma.’
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