Explainer
Comment
Death & life
4 min read

What they don’t tell you about when someone you love dies

Sharing her experience of her husband’s death, Yvonne Tulloch charts grief’s journey and shares signposts to help. Part of the How to Die Well series.

Yvonne Tulloch is Founder and CEO of AtaLoss, helping bereaved people find support and wellbeing. 

A group of grieving friends with their hands on each others backs.
The Good Funeral Guide on Unsplash.

Turn on the news and death is all around us. Yet somehow, we think it will never happen to us.  In one sense that’s good. We have a child-like innocence that protects us from the harsh realities of life.   

A few years ago, as a church minister, I thought I knew about death.  I’d been trained to take funerals and had supported families when a loved one had died.  But it wasn’t until I was bereaved myself - when my husband died suddenly of a heart attack - that I realised how little even I knew.  

Although busy, life had been good until then.  My husband had a successful job, my own work was going well and our three children were flying the nest and finding their feet in university.  Little did I know that in one, short phone call from a colleague, our lives would change forever.   

Simon had been found dead in his hotel in Spain, and I was faced with telling each of the children and his mother, the worst news anyone could convey.  Concerned about social media the news was embargoed until all family members knew, then I had to go to Spain to find, as well as identify the body, and bring him home.  I had to work out our finances – no one knew what we had to live off – close accounts and put things in my name.  I discovered our house wasn’t insured, nor our car for me to drive, that bank accounts were frozen, and that no organisation is geared up to help.  Everyone insists on speaking to the account holder or seeing the actual death certificate before being willing to oblige.  I had a funeral and thanksgiving to organise – two big occasions in just 3 weeks - and a mountain of admin to deal with, which would be difficult at any time.  

Grief is a journey of adjustment of who we are to a new existence – one that takes a long time and never comes at a convenient time.

We’ve been a death-denying culture, I now realise, for many years. With death invariably happening in hospices or hospitals, we’ve pushed death away and pretended it doesn’t happen.  Consequently, we’ve lost knowledge of bereavement and the art of support.  We’ve tended only to think about preparing for funerals and then counselling if the person isn’t doing well.  But what about all the other help that’s needed?  Understanding and support is necessary in all manner of ways.  Bereavement is one of the most stressful times of life, affecting everyone sooner or later and every part of their life.  Grief is a journey of adjustment of who we are to a new existence – one that takes a long time and never comes at a convenient time.    

At first most of us are shocked or emotionally numb; we run on adrenaline and we’re in survival mode.  At the funeral others can think we’re doing well, and we can too.  But it’s after, when the real sadness tends to hit, when the future must be faced and by then support has dropped away.   

Many of us experience a roller coaster of changing reactions and responses which we don’t recognise as us or don’t associate with grief.  

There are the physical reactions, for instance. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I was cold and I shook for months, I had a heavy ‘weight’ in my gut and was taken to hospital three times with suspected heart problems - our bodies are always in tune with our emotions.   

And there are the psychological reactions.  We can experience anxiety, anger and guilt; we can’t concentrate or remember, or function to do the most basic of tasks.  I kept thinking I was seeing Simon and had a psychosis which made me feel separated from the world.  We can think we’re going mad.  

Grief is a natural response to loss which we need to work through for our future wellbeing.

For me help came from two initiatives I was fortunate to find: Care for the Family’s Widowed Young Support and The Bereavement Journey course run by a church in London.  In each of these I discovered others who had been bereaved, who understood what I was going through and who helped me to navigate the alien territory I found myself in.  They also helped me to understand my spiritual responses which had been the biggest surprise.  I had never doubted my Christian faith but with bereavement, that too was challenged, and God, who had always felt present, suddenly disappeared.  I realize now that this is natural.  Grieving is a process of deconstruction and reconstruction of meaning, and therefore some of whatever meaning we had before the person died, will deconstruct as we grieve. 

Roll on a few years and I’m on the other side, running a charity helping people to understand that in our death-denying society bereavement impacts greatly, and that grief is a natural response to loss which we need to work through for our future wellbeing.  Support is needed in various ways which we direct to through our signposting website ataloss.org.  And I’m helping people myself through The Bereavement Journey course to find healing and hope, offering also spiritual support for the faith questioning I find most people have.  Unfortunately, though, because we’ve neglected death, many haven’t been supported through a bereavement in the past and are carrying loss which is unresolved.   

Article
Character
Comment
Friendship
Virtues
6 min read

Guiding’s new badges don’t deserve this media criticism

Encouraging interests builds character now and for tomorrow

Paula Duncan is a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen, researching OCD and faith.

Two Brownies point out their badges.
Girl Guiding.

As a Brownie leader, what I love about Girlguiding is the perfect blend of tradition and modernity. Lots of people will have memories of belonging to Brownies or Guides. In conversation, it’s often the uniforms that people mention first – for ex-Brownies it’s always the brown dresses, or the iconic yellow sweatshirt which has now been relaunched for adults as a retro range. I will admit to buying one almost immediately and have loved wearing my tribute to the Jeff Banks design era of uniform that I loved so much as a child.  

For those unfamiliar with the organisation, Girlguiding began in 1909 with a small group of girls who joined a Scout rally and bravely asked that there be ‘something for the girls’ too. Today, Girlguiding has four youth sections: Rainbows (aged 4-7), Brownies (7-10), Guides (10-14), and Rangers (14-18).  

I’m particularly excited to go back to our weekly meetings after the school holidays because a new range of interest badges have just been launched for all sections – 78 in total! These badges are designed so that girls can choose which activities they’d like to pursue – either a new skill or hobby or learning something new. Each badge fits into one of our six distinct programme areas: Be Well, Express Myself, Skills for My Future, Take Action, Know Myself, and Have Adventures.  

A lot of the publicity surrounding the badges has been really positive – praising the organisation for representing the interests of young people. The badges were designed, after all, with the input of members and with extensive testing by groups across the UK, and feedback from 11,000 girls about the new badge offerings. My Brownie unit enjoyed being part of the testing pool for the ‘Passions’ badge, which encouraged them to think more deeply about the hobbies they have and try some new pursuits. Reading the final version of the badge when it was released was brilliant because I could really see the impact of the Brownies’ feedback.  

I’ve been disappointed to see the organisation’s new badges be subject to some heavy media criticism and that headlines have been tailored to mock, rather than share the relevant and interesting content that the badges actually offer. The Telegraph used the current tensions around gender identity to create a clickbait title: “Girlguiding ‘hostess’ badge gets gender-neutral makeover” which, inevitably, caused a flurry of (largely unpleasant) Facebook comments about identity politics. While the article itself does well to describe some of the new badge offerings, leading with a controversial heading detracts from the truth that the previous ‘hostess’ badge was discontinued as part of the programme refresh and that member feedback brought about a return of a similar offering.  

Victoria Richards writes in The Independent that: ‘Girlguiding is […] modernising the way it interacts with young people. Speaking their language. After all, what use is an organisation for girls if nobody wants to join it?’  

This does not seem to be the opinion of Lucy Mangan who writes a particularly scathing indictment of the movement in general and in a large part advocates for teaching children how to use a gun and cut down trees. Obviously unfamiliar with the Girlguiding programme, she misses that our new interest badges are just that – part of a programme that encourages girls to pursue their own interests and often to try something new! “Interest” simply means that we allow girls to choose for themselves what they are interested in learning more about. We remain dedicated to teaching core life skills (things like first aid, I’d argue, rather than using a gun) as part of the Skills Builder set of badges that progress through each section.  

An opinion piece in The Express says: ‘The new Girl Guide badges are so easy, it’s like awarding a gold star for blinking’… This simply isn’t true; even the youngest members are encouraged to try something new or improve on a skill. It’s strange that none of these critical articles come from current members or leaders. Sometimes we do offer badges for participation at an event or marking on occasion but part of the joy of those is collecting them. I love looking for a badge patch when I’m on holiday and adding them to my camp blanket. There are some fantastic blankets out there – with badges from people’s travels, awards they’ve earned, and badges they’ve swapped with others they’ve met at events.  

Why shouldn’t we be encouraging our youngest members to have courage?

Most articles – including the BBC – have chosen to lead articles with the range of badges that fall under ‘Be Well’ or ‘Know Myself’ and are therefore designed to help young people learn valuable skills in self-care and identifying the things that are important to them. They are, by nature, designed to help young people learn more about themselves and how they interact with the world.  

This leads readers to believe that all badges are ‘self-centred’ as critics like Mangan have written. Why shouldn’t we be encouraging our youngest members to have courage? Girlguiding’s research has shown that 50 per cent of girls surveyed felt anxious about their future in 2024. Showing girls how to manage feelings of worry from a young age can only be a good thing. Our Rainbows are encouraged to “share the laughter with someone else.” Brownie Guides are working on their friendship badge are asked to “spend time with a new or old friend”.  

Dig a little further and look to the other interest badges and there can be no doubt that the programme Girlguiding offers is important and helps young people to challenge themselves and build new skills. The activities offered are relevant to the concerns of young people and the betterment of their communities. Rangers are supported to learn more about voting and how to ensure their voice is heard. In a world with fast fashion and markets like Temu dominating digital spaces, Guides can find out how to make informed decisions as part of their Conscious Consumer badge. 

Brownies can learn new languages or work towards their Mechanic badge. Even the youngest girls have the chance to learn about key principles of architecture in their Construction badge – the full syllabus of which is online. For critics who say that traditional skills like knot tying, sewing, or semaphore are forgotten by Girlguiding, all of these can be found in our Skills Builders and unit meeting activities. It can be so easy to be critical of something new or something that is changing without doing any further research to find out whether the headlines are accurate. Clickbait headlines are designed to drive up traffic and revenue, but something of the truth is lost in the process.  

I am incredibly proud to be part of an organisation that offers a rich, varied programme to young people. It has helped me grow from an anxious primary school child to a leader who can recognise the value of teaching life skills that are relevant to our time and place. Right now, girls need to have the resources and support to thrive in both the tangible world, and in an increasingly digital world.  

For those disheartened by the reception of the new badges, it’s worth looking to smaller news outlets. Those who have taken the time to garner responses from members and young people are much more encouraging and help to celebrate an exciting new step in our programme. I hope that those who can see the value of the programme offered to girls through Girlguiding can use this opportunity to find out more. If anything in this article has resonated with you, please do check out volunteer opportunities. 

From someone who likes to incorporate things like Star Trek into my academic work, why shouldn’t we be able to offer a badge about Fandoms? Why shouldn’t we celebrate the things that we enjoy? There really is something for every girl, even if the loudest voices in Facebook comment sections don’t make that clear. I’m incredibly proud to be part of an organisation that brings out the best in young people (and in me as an adult leader!).  

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