Going to see my counsellor seems a bit like stepping into the confessional box. It got me thinking on my drive home from seeing her the other day, what a cathartic, freeing activity confessing is. I’m no Catholic, and I’m pretty sceptical about it in its ritualised form, but I can see now the appeal and can understand what a powerful experience it can be potentially.

Whether my ‘sins’ are actually that is another question. I don’t believe that being happy and feeling fullfilled and free can be sins, but again and again my ‘grieving widow’ mantle makes me feel guilty nonetheless.

So I confess – to something that doesn’t need confessing – but it makes me feel better anyway.

This time I confessed that when I think of Ben all I can remember with any vividness are the difficult times last year, and how he looked and was in his last months. With huge globular tears I blurted this out – I feel so ashamed of it. Poor Ben – he deserves to be remembered at his best, not as he was during those dark times.