“Grief is a season of our lives, but it can be a life sentence.”
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For renown Adelaide-based journalist Nadine Williams OAM, the loss of her husband in 2012 felt like a life sentence.
However, through her friends and family she slowly was able to move beyond her sorrow.
She chronicled her love and journey through grief to the other side in her latest book Farewell My French Love.
She will be in Launceston for a book signing next week and welcomed people to speak with her.
Williams said she was still madly in love when her French husband Olivier was diagnosed with cancer more than six years ago.
She was his carer during his final four months until he died in 2012.
“Grief is like being kicked in the stomach by a draft horse, you can’t breathe and life has no meaning.”
Williams described the experience as being “crippled emotionally” and drowning in her own sorrow.
She faced with the prospect of being alone for the rest of her life, which was “like a vortex that pulls you under”.
A growing number of women from the baby boomer generation were facing the same prospect as widows, she said.
It was through her friendship with Jane that she began to heal more than 12 months after his death.
She recommended that Williams join her on a trip to France to celebrate their 20th friendship anniversary.
“You need someone to hold your hand and lift you up,” Williams said.
“Grief is as strong an emotion as love.”
They were in the Loire Valley, where Williams revisited her honeymoon, that she remembered thinking she was enjoying her day.
“I knew the grief was lifting.”
Pushing herself to travel helped to work through her sorrow, she said.
Not everyone could travel to France, but they could turn to their friends for support, she said.
“You have to be brave and accept every invitation.”
She spent the final weeks of her trip in Paris, where she met independent French women who helped her to appreciate her family and friends.
Her book was a bittersweet memoir as it also reflected on the years they spent happily married.
It also offered an insight into French society, and celebrated love and friendship.
Williams is an award-winning journalist who forged her career in Adelaide as a social issues and women’s issues writer, as well as working as the chief reporter of a popular magazine for readers over 50.
When Olivier was diagnosed, she abandoned her social lifestyle to care for him at their Adelaide home. “Caring for my husband was an act of love.
“Loss is the price we pay for love.”
- Petrarch’s Bookshop will host Nadine Williams for a book signing of Farewell My French Love, published by Harlequin Books, on February 6 from 2.30pm.
Tess Brunton
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
