What to send someone who has lost their husband or partner

Gifts they can keep

• A memorial lantern with his photograph. It sits in the room they spend the evening in and gives them something to switch on. The drawer underneath holds his wedding ring, his watch, his glasses.
• A memory book. How they met, the house they lived in, the things he always said, recordings of his voice. It gives a widow or widower something to do with the memories rather than only carry them.
• A photograph they may not have. From your side of his life: work, the pub, the football team, a holiday you were on together.
• Something in his handwriting, framed. A note, a recipe, a list. People often find these months later and wish they had kept one out.

The help that actually helps

A surviving partner inherits every job the two of them used to split, usually while handling the paperwork of a death. The useful gift is often the one that removes a task.

• Take one of his jobs and keep taking it: the bins, the car, the lawn, the gutters.
• Cook a meal for a set day, not a vague offer. Evenings are the hard part, because that is when the house is quietest.
• Sit with the admin. Pensions, accounts, the insurer, the phone contract in his name. It is tedious and it is awful to do alone.
• Invite them to the thing they used to come to as a couple. Many people stop being invited, and read it as being dropped.

What to write

Use his name. Say one specific thing you remember about him, not about the loss.

I’m so sorry about Michael. I’ve been thinking about how he used to answer the phone like he’d been waiting all day for you to call.

Thirty-one years. I don’t have anything useful to say, but I’m not going anywhere.

Avoid “at least” in any form, and avoid putting a timescale on it. “He’s at peace now” is a comfort to the person saying it more often than to the person hearing it.

The days that come later

Their wedding anniversary is the one most people forget, and it is often harder than the anniversary of his death. His birthday, the first Christmas and the first holiday they would have taken together land the same way. A message on those days costs nothing and is remembered for years.

Which STILLWIND lantern for a husband or partner

Those We Love is the one most people choose here: a short verse about the people who stay with us, on a lantern that holds his photograph. Family Tree suits a man who was the centre of a large family. Both come as a wood lantern with a copper or black crown, and as a slimmer metal lantern in black or white. Each has a velvet-lined drawer, a flameless candle with a remote, and arrives gift-boxed with a sympathy card. Every lantern comes with the free Still With Me Starter Book; the Unlimited Book on its own is $39, paid once.