How I found my way after losing my husband to a shock cancer diagnosis

After a bruising and lonely journey through grief, followed by losing a beloved job, I decided to take my late husband’s advice: to live and to do the things I was good at, writes Lucy Melville

To lose one husband may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. That is, of course, a bad paraphrasing of one of Lady Bracknell’s famous lines in The Importance of Being Earnest. But I did lose my husband – to cancer, in the summer of 2023. And then I lost what some people would call my “work husband” the following year, following a bruising and lonely journey through grief.

The Oscar Wilde reference is relevant because that play was a critical part of my recovery: I threw myself into the part of Lady B in a production at the Oxford Playhouse following a life-changing course of events.

In the summer of 2023, I had been preparing for what was to come – the life after the empty nest, the life after 25 years of marriage. Then my husband, Brian, felt unwell and went to the GP. Blood tests revealed something was wrong, and at the day assessment unit of our local hospital, he was told he had cancer that had spread to his liver.

After a matter of days, and a blurry reckoning of our past, present and future, we knew that in the nomenclature of cancer diagnoses, he had the one you absolutely do not want: small cell carcinoma. His prognosis was a year at best.

We reeled in shock – our youngest was still at school, sitting exams. There was a slight delay before treatment could commence, and in that time, the relentless march of this thief of hope and joy took him out.

The author as Lady Bracknell in a production of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the Oxford Playhouse last year (Lucy Melville)

He was gone on a Saturday morning, just six weeks after his diagnosis. While I raced around our city trying to find him prescription medications for the pain, our eldest sat by his hospital-at-home bed and watched him die. I will never forget that call from my son as I stood in line at the chemist: “Mum, he’s gone. He’s dead.” I arrived home to a tableau of hysterical kids around his bed. I took one look at him and knew there was nothing more I could do. The people in the room needed me now.

What followed was me doing what I thought at the time was the right thing to do. I took just one week off from my demanding role as a global publishing director for an international firm before throwing myself into change management and contingency planning while leading the biggest team in the company. It is only when I look back now that I realise I was burning out. Just six weeks after my husband’s death, I was attending an overseas crisis meeting.

I had been very close to the owner of the business, and he was wonderful to me for a long time. Something changed. My grief was breaking over me like The Great Wave off Kanagawa, and anger and loneliness seeped through. I was confused, sad and angry – and driven. I ended up leaving the business, and, as a result, I lost the person whom, after my husband, I had entrusted with my deepest fears and vulnerabilities.

I think somewhere back there, I unravelled. I was left with no insurance payout or coverage when my husband died, and the loss of my salary with three kids headed for university was a blow. I had to face facts, and not only the heartbreak of losing the job I loved, but also the connectedness I felt in the business. I hit a very low point – and then I stopped.

All I had was within me, and it was my late husband who had told me to go on, to live and to do the things I was good at. I still had that. I reached out in my network and met the wonderful people I am now in a business partnership with, who could see my value and worth.

They offered me the chance to launch and co-own a new publishing company, which we have named River Light Press. The Thames connects our two locations, and light is the thing we turn towards after the darkest night. It is also the Latin meaning of my name, Lucy.

I am now acquiring my first titles for the press. I had felt doors slamming shut in my face at what is an exposing time for many women, but I now feel the warmth and pleasure of others opening up in their place.

I can never move on from Brian, but I will move forward. My new partnership and new venture are giving me hope and purpose.

Lucy Melville is the co-owner of River Light Press, an independent publishing house based in London and Oxford