Putting off having our affairs sorted from the time we leave home and go out into the big wide world is something that is thought to be a bit over the top. As if anything untoward would happen to us before we reached old age. Live it up. There’s plenty of time to deal with these, well, incidental issues later. Or is there. There are far too many stories of people dying well before old age for us to ignore posting some stories about them. This is one worth passing on, no pun intended. Read the full story at the ABC News highlighted link.

Widowed at 38, Michelle Moriarty knows about grief and what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. National Regional Reporter Eliza Borrello, (ABC News, 17 Mar 2023), writes that: At just 42, Michelle Moriarty has learnt a lot about grief.

In 2018, she became a widow when her partner, 39-year-old Nathan Johnston, died suddenly.

“Nathan and I had our whole lives ahead of us and I had a two-year-old and a six-year-old and we were very excited about life and life changed … every aspect of our life changed that night,” she said.

Looking for others who shared a similar experience, Michelle — who lives in Bunbury, two hours south of Perth — set up a young widow’s Facebook group.

“Despite having so much support from family, friends and my community, I still felt really isolated in my grief,” she said.

“The main benefit for me, in the early days particularly, was just that sense of ‘I’m not alone in this; it’s not just me that this has happened to.'”

The group now has more than 300 members.

“[It helped] being able to connect with others emotionally and support each other with the issues we had to face, because there are a lot of unexpected processes and tasks, some are formal, some are informal … after the death of a loved one,” Michelle said.

Last year Michelle’s father died unexpectedly too. So she set up another Facebook group, this time for widows over 55.

“[It] was something I felt was important, as my mother was now widowed, similarly to me,” she said.

What to say to someone who has lost a loved one. Michelle is now using her skills as a social worker to offer grief counselling. She has also set up The Grief Language Project, promoting grief education and helpful things to say to people who’ve lost a loved one.