Seven people in sixteen years. Five of them in the last four. I’m 30 now, and I’ve been to more funerals than most people my age. Some years there’s barely been time to breathe between one goodbye and the next.
But this isn’t a list of dates. It’s about who they were.
Brenda
Brenda was my auntie, though we never called her that. She was just Brenda.
Every Saturday, my sisters Maisy and Charleigh and I went round to hers. Her house always smelled of baking. She’d have pasties on the go or a cake cooling, and there was always a box of Black Magic somewhere nearby. That was her chocolate. Those Saturdays felt like they’d go on forever.
In 2010, they stopped. Brenda passed away when I was barely a teenager, and I didn’t have the words for it. I just remember everyone going quiet in a way I’d never seen before. I thought grief was something that happened once. I had no idea it would follow me through my whole life.
Mandy
Mandy, another of my aunties, was the loudest, brightest person in any room. I’ll never forget her belting out “We Are Young” by Fun. without caring who was listening. She wore flip flops and bright dresses everywhere, whatever the weather. Rain, cold, didn’t matter.
She always had Maltesers, and I’d stay over at hers with my cousin Jason. Charleigh and I would sit with her watching How It’s Made, glued to how they made crayons or tennis balls, and Mandy was just as into it as we were.
She died in 2020, in a year when the whole world already felt like it was falling apart. I watched her funeral from home. Someone that full of life just being gone didn’t make sense.
See the candle Charleigh lit for Mandy →
Jen
Jen was my stepmum, we weren’t massively close. But she worked in a pub, and when I turned 18 she sorted me the function room for my party. When I turned 21, she did it again. They were two big nights, and she made them happen. Looking back, that was her way of showing up for me, and I’m grateful for it.
Jen died in 2022 after an illness.
Dad
My dad was a Guinness man, and his place was the Brit (Britannia Inn), right by Plymouth Argyle. He walked everywhere. Not hikes, just into town and back, because that’s how he liked to get about. He loved the beach, he loved fishing, and more than anywhere he loved Looe. He also had an Abarth, a little sports car he was properly proud of.
When we were kids, he’d play the old love songs in the car whenever we went out. I still can’t hear some of them without being right back in the passenger seat. A bit of Celine Dion.
When the cancer came, my brothers and sisters, my stepsister Carlee and I looked after him between us. There were nights I’d turn up at 2am to help him settle. There were endless phone calls about his medication, chasing, explaining, chasing again. It was exhausting, and I’d do every bit of it again.
He died in 2023. Losing your dad changes the shape of the world.
Grandad
Grandad lived in a small bungalow in Saltash, but I remember his house from before that, when I was younger. It was full of fish tanks, and the garden had fish ponds. To a younger me, being there with Grandad, his partner Pam and his daughter Katie was a whole world. He always had dogs, plenty of them over the years. He loved pottering round the little shops on Fore Street, taking his time and knowing everyone. He was a bit of a local celebrity.
He died in 2025.
Steve
Steve was my uncle, but like Brenda, he was always just Steve to us.
He lived on the Isle of Wight with Tina, my auntie, and my cousins Emma, Kirsty and Callum. He was always making something. He had a 3D printer and loved designing and building things with it, and he was into shooting too.
The Isle of Wight isn’t exactly round the corner from Plymouth, but Steve, Tina and the family made the trip all the way over for my wedding. Then they did it again for Charleigh’s wedding in 2025. He turned up for the moments that mattered.
Random but true... when I was younger, Steve always told me I should be a boxer because I had a “thick neck”.
He died this year.
See the candle I lit for Steve →
Nan
Nan loved a holiday. She loved biscuits. She loved bingo. More than anything, she loved being with her family, and she loved her grandchildren.
In her last moments she lived in a care home with dementia. Dementia is its own kind of loss. You say goodbye slowly, in pieces, while the person is still in front of you.
She died this year too.
Living with it
People ask how you cope with that much. Honestly, you don’t cope in a neat, finished way. You learn to live alongside it. Grief stops being one event and becomes part of everyday life.
It’s a box of Black Magic on a shop shelf. It’s a song on the radio that Mandy would have sung far too loud. It’s a pint of Guinness, a walk into town, a day in Looe. It’s someone in flip flops in November.
What I’ve learned is that grief is really just love with nowhere to go. Every one of these losses hurt because every one of these people mattered. Brenda, Mandy, Jen, Dad, Grandad, Steve, Nan. They’re Saturday afternoons and birthday parties, late-night treks and long journeys to weddings. They shaped who I am.
Why I built The Bridge of Lights
After going through these losses, I started wondering where all that love is supposed to go. Graves are miles away, Facebook moves on, and anniversaries come round whether you’re ready or not. I wanted somewhere simple where anyone could light a candle for someone they miss, one that never burns out. That’s why I built The Bridge of Lights.
So I say their names. I tell their stories. Grief gets lonely when it’s kept quiet, and a little lighter when it’s shared.
