“Even if a loved one doesn’t give you that gift of saying something like that [that you should remarry] before they die, I personally feel it’s reasonable to think somebody who loves you will want the best for you. It may be easier said than done because I know some people feel guilty or stuck. But losing someone is hard enough without feeling that way.”

Lucy’s strength and ethos is remarkable and something I want to soak in. The shock of loss can so easily consume us and turn us into an unhealthy and unproductive state.

“We [Paul and Lucy] were very connected emotionally and we really talked honestly about what was happening with the fact of his dying, how I was feeling and how he was feeling,” she says. “Everyone is so fearful of death so to actually name it and have everybody really say what they’re feeling – then there’s not the elephant in the room.”

Intellectually, it helped that Lucy and Paul were both doctors. They knew the process very well. “We weren’t protecting each other from something and in a way I think that gave us strength because we created this safe haven.”

“I treat running like it’s a medicine”

While Lucy cared for Paul, Paul made sure Lucy was also taken care of and had enough time to herself. Every other day, Lucy would carve out moments to jog by herself around their picturesque neighbourhood in San Francisco. “It helps me to sleep at night. Sleep deprivation in itself is literally a form of torture.”

To combat moments of stress and anxiety, she practices mindfulness meditation for five to 15 minutes the moment she wakes up, three days a week, using the app Headspace and a recording a friend sent to her. “It helps you recognise your emotions for what they are without giving them so much weight that they are incapacitating. It helps you function alongside strong emotions.”

It also helped her quash any self-judgement and criticism she inflicted upon herself – questions such as “What am I doing?” or “Should I be doing this?”

“Meditation makes you more aware of your mind wandering and feeling anxious rather than just going straight to the anxious emotions. You don’t fall into the spiral anymore.”

After Paul died, she also took comfort in poetry. “Poetry can be so distilled, beautiful and sharp. I used to be intimidated by poetry, I didn’t understand it. But now I find a good poem can express something and make you think ‘ah ha! That’s how I feel’. It makes you feel less alone.”

She literally googled "grief poems" and found Surprised by Joy by Wordsworth, a poem about the instinct to share a happy experience with someone who has died and suddenly feeling sad because of it. “It’s a good example of all the waves of emotions and the ways everything is unpredictable.”

“Life is not about avoiding suffering” Widow, Lucy Kalanithi, on how to grieve and breathe after death