Why I Donated to Widowed & Young
Widowed at the age of 36, Chantal Beeston, needed to find a way to rebuild her life for herself and her young family. Running and supporting Widowed & Young provided just that.
Helping Rhinos
This is a feature from Issue 18 of Charitable Traveller. Click to read more from this issue.
I’ve always wanted to do a marathon, but I’d find endless excuses not to. My late husband, Ben, would tease me for calling myself a runner, joking that I wasn’t a proper runner if I hadn’t run a marathon.
Ben suddenly died in May 2022 and I was thinking about how to mark the anniversary. I didn’t want to sit around and be miserable, but doing any sort of celebration felt weird, so I said to myself if I can find a marathon that’s on the date of his death, and is flat (I don’t do hills), I’ll do it. I’d run out of excuses.
Looking online that night I came across the Marathon de la Loire in France and I just knew it was the right thing to do. Ben and I had got married in France 13 years earlier, he’d studied French at Leeds University, and runners got a bottle of French fizz in their race packs (Ben and I loved French wine) – the stars had aligned.
I signed up immediately and started training. I found running therapeutic to help deal with all the grief and I signed up thinking I wouldn’t fundraise, I just needed to do something for me. But Widowed & Young (WAY) had been so supportive since Ben’s death that when they asked me to fundraise, I couldn’t say no.
We’d been living in Dubai when Ben died. He was 39, working as a primary school teacher and affectionately known as the BFG – he was 6ft 6, and made everyone look tiny. He was so fit and healthy, he’d run a half marathon in February that year. But one morning, while I was playing in the pool with our two daughters, he simply collapsed with a heart attack. He was rushed to hospital but he died later that day. We found out he’d had myocarditis, and his heart was just too poorly to cope. It was a complete shock – we’d had a babysitter booked for that evening! Friends rallied round and my mum was with us within 12 hours, but we moved back to Cambridgeshire within a week as I just didn’t want to be there anymore.
Friends rallied round and my mum was with us within 12 hours, but we moved back to Cambridgeshire within a week as I just didn’t want to be there anymore. Our daughters were two and six when Ben died, and so we’ve been rebuilding our lives without him. My mum mentioned WAY quite early on, but I wasn’t interested – I didn’t want to be in some sort of club with other sad people, then my GP mentioned the charity a few months later too and I was ready to sign up.
WAY provides a fabulous community of people who’ve been through what you’ve been through. I’m incredibly lucky to have wonderful parents and friends who have done so much for me but none of them understand this and I can’t expect them to. Thank goodness they don’t understand, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. With WAY, there’s something about being able to reach out and talk to people where you’re not ‘the different one’, you’re not ‘the sad one’, and that’s really important. I trained for 16 weeks ahead of the marathon, and we – my mum, sister and my daughters – made our weekend in France really special. I felt very close to Ben and I know he would have loved it. The whole trip felt like a celebration of Ben, and of the fact that our girls are happy and we’re going to be okay.
W&Y is the only national charity for people aged 50 and under when their partner dies. Click here to find out more.
This is a feature from Issue 18 of Charitable Traveller. Click to read more from this issue.
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