In this episode Rosie Moss speaks with Laura Plowman, who lost her partner Gavin to terminal cancer just months after the birth of their son. A former police officer, Laura shares her journey of love, loss and survival with breathtaking honesty and quiet strength.

Laura and Gavin met through work in 2018, their relationship moving quickly from first dates to buying a home and welcoming a baby in June 2020. But their new family life was abruptly upended when Gavin collapsed in their garden and was diagnosed with an aggressive spinal tumour. Just five weeks after symptoms began, doctors told them his cancer was incurable, with a prognosis of only 12 to 18 months.

Laura describes becoming both a new mother and a caregiver to her paralysed husband. She shares tender and painful memories: their backyard wedding, Gavin’s choice to stop chemotherapy in favour of quality time, his voice notes recorded for their son, and the mixture of dark humour and fragile intimacy that helped them endure. “It was beautiful, yet horrendous, yet unfair,” Laura reflects of Gavin’s final hours, a line that captures the raw and contradictory landscape of this conversation.

Now parenting their child alone, Laura speaks about helping him grieve a father he will never truly know, rediscovering moments of joy, and leaning on therapy, music and widow communities for strength. Her story is devastating and hopeful, full of love, loss and the small ways life carries on.

This conversation explores:

• Laura’s whirlwind love story with Gavin, from awkward first impression to cohabitation, engagement and parenthood

• The devastating collapse in the garden that led to a terminal diagnosis five weeks later

• Balancing medical treatment with quality of life as Gavin chose to end chemotherapy

• Fragile and intimate moments: a backyard wedding, shared hospital jokes and voice notes for their baby son

• Facing death together, from syringe drivers to spirituality to Gavin’s final hours

• Navigating solo parenting and helping a young child grieve a parent they will never fully know

• Rediscovering life through therapy, music and widow support communities where grief and laughter coexist

Rosie speaks to Michelle Watson Rhodes, who shares the devastating story of losing her fiancé Mike to a sudden heart attack just six months before their planned wedding.

Michelle and Mike’s love story began during the stillness of lockdown, unfolding through long walks, shared breakfasts and the kind of everyday companionship that makes life feel steady. A quiet proposal by the river led to plans for a wedding in Jamaica until everything changed in a single night.

Michelle reflects on the night she lost Mike, the desperate attempt at CPR and the unimaginable aftermath of being treated as a suspect, facing hostility from an estranged family and fighting to be recognised in her grief.

She also shares how she holds onto Mike’s legacy, the man who once saved a stranger’s life and was honoured with an MBE, while slowly rebuilding her world with quiet courage and small rituals that help her keep going.

This conversation is about love interrupted, grief without recognition and the resilience it takes to keep moving forward when everything has changed.

In this episode Rosie Moss speaks with Lisa Marshall, known online as @the_widowdiaries on Instagram and TikTok. Lisa has built a powerful community by sharing her journey of surviving the sudden suicide of her husband Alan and raising three young children in the aftermath.

Through raw honesty and reflection, Lisa opens up about the shock of widowhood, the silence that often surrounds suicide, and the everyday reality of parenting through unimaginable grief. From breaking the news to her children, to navigating their neurodivergent needs, to finding fleeting signs of comfort in ladybirds and flickering lights, she offers a candid and unflinching account of resilience, love, and survival.

This conversation explores:

• The shock of suicide and the unanswered questions it leaves behind

• Parenting as a widow compared with single parenting after separation

• Explaining suicide to children with honesty and compassion

• The weight of public expectations and private grief

• Finding meaning in small signs, stories, and shared community

This episode is a moving reminder that grief lives in school runs, packed lunches, and the quiet work of staying present for those still here.

In this episode Rosie Moss is joined by Zoe Flory, who shares the story of her late partner Patrick from their whirlwind first meeting in a Brighton pub to navigating his terminal cancer diagnosis to raising their daughter Addie after his death.

With unflinching honesty and flashes of humour, Zoe speaks about the reality of becoming a full-time caregiver, the heartbreak of watching Patrick fade under the weight of cancer and Lynch syndrome, and the extraordinary tenderness that carried them through.

Zoe recalls the messy, magical, and devastating moments: draining fluid from Patrick’s lungs at home, creating “daddy magic” rituals for their toddler, and choosing a pub-style wake over the cremation she wasn’t ready for. She talks openly about preparing a young child for loss, using imaginative metaphors like “Daddy lives on the moon” to help Addie find comfort.

Now living in a platonic co-parenting arrangement with a close friend, Zoe reflects on parenting through grief, reclaiming her own identity, and the contradictions of widowhood where love, loss, exhaustion and laughter all collide.

This conversation is a reminder that grief is never simple, caregiving is never easy, and yet new forms of family and meaning can grow in the wake of heartbreak.

In this episode Rosie Moss speaks with Julie Farrin, who lost her husband Andy to glioblastoma, an aggressive and fast moving brain cancer.

Julie shares the story of meeting Andy, falling for his quiet kindness, and marrying him just weeks before their world was turned upside down. She talks about the first seizure that led to his diagnosis, the challenges of treatment during lockdown, and the painful reality of watching his words, independence and dignity slip away.

Together we explore what it meant to become a full time carer so early in marriage, the mix of exhaustion and dark humour that carried her through, and the heartbreak of hospice and widowhood. Julie also reflects on life after Andy, returning to work too soon, panic attacks, health struggles of her own, and the slow work of building a life without him.

She is honest about the isolation, the decisions she never thought she would face, and the importance of keeping Andy’s memory alive. As Julie puts it, “We are the gatekeepers, the memory keepers.”

We talk about:

• Julie and Andy’s love story and the early signs of glioblastoma

• The impact of lockdown on treatment and caregiving

• Watching decline up close and making end of life decisions

• The burden of being the only caregiver and managing others’ denial

• Choosing not to pursue motherhood under impossible circumstances

• Returning to work, health struggles and the ongoing reality of grief

• Why storytelling matters and how memory keeping keeps loved ones close

In this episode, host Rosie Moss speaks with Ric Hart—a writer, speaker, and solo father who lost his wife Jade shortly after the birth of their son Hugo in 2018.

Ric shares the raw reality of grief colliding with fatherhood: bringing a newborn home alone, feeding Hugo through sleepless nights, and confronting what he believes were preventable hospital failures. From that devastation, he found purpose—writing children’s books that comfort his son, publishing an adult memoir, and creating a podcast and nonprofit work to support other grieving families.

He also opens up about how contrast therapy—a mix of sauna and ice baths—helped him regulate his nervous system and eventually became a practice he now shares with others.

Together, Rosie and Ric explore:

• The trauma of losing Jade during childbirth and the isolating experience of widowed fatherhood.

• How Ric broke time into “hour-by-hour” survival to keep going in those first months.

• The role of writing, storytelling, and advocacy in transforming grief into purpose.

• The social isolation of being a widowed dad in mother-centric parenting spaces.

• Rebuilding identity through contrast therapy and creating a coaching practice.

• Dating after profound loss and finding space for new love alongside eternal grief.

• Practical advice for anyone grieving: take small steps, let yourself feel, and lean on the people who truly show up.

As Ric says, it’s about “just turning up”—for your children, for yourself, and for others walking the same path.

n this solo episode, host Rosie Moss shares her own story with unflinching honesty.

Seven and a half years after losing her husband, Rosie now faces a second upheaval: the end of her marriage. She reflects on how new heartbreak can reawaken old wounds, leaving her once again asking, how the f**k do I get back up?

Rosie talks candidly about raising three children, two with additional needs, while navigating school moves, GCSE pressure, and the relentlessness of being the only adult her kids can lean on. She admits to feeling exhausted, isolated, and often overwhelmed, but also determined to keep going.

Amid the chaos, she finds moments of light:

• Finishing her first book on widowhood.

• Hosting her debut Widowed AF retreat, a space for connection and healing.

• Being named a finalist at the British Podcast Awards, a reminder that her work matters.

  
  

This is an episode about overlapping griefs, solo parenting, and starting again when you didn’t think you had the strength. With dark humour, humility, and fierce honesty, Rosie invites you into her world, proof that even in the wreckage, there can still be community, meaning, and hope.

In this episode, Rosie Moss sits down with Clare McCue, who faced one of the most difficult journeys imaginable: walking with her husband Mattie through ALS, and ultimately supporting his decision to die with dignity through Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) law.

Clare shares candidly what it meant to prepare her young son Hudson for his father’s death — not by hiding it, but by weaving him into every stage of the process. From navigating a chaotic healthcare system during lockdown, to explaining assisted dying with honesty and compassion, Clare opens a window onto the realities few families ever speak of.

The conversation explores:

• The emotional, legal and practical steps of pursuing assisted death in Canada.
• How Clare and Mattie made space for dignity and agency, even in decline.
• The raw reality of telling a child that his father had chosen the time and place of his death.
• How organ donation added a powerful sense of legacy to Mattie’s final act.
• The ways Clare turned grief into action through community fundraising and everyday rituals with Hudson.

As Clare says, “Hope wasn’t that everything would be okay, but that there would be meaning in how it worked out.”

This is an extraordinary story of love, courage, and the controversial but profoundly human choice of assisted death.

At just 31, Karla Hawkins’ husband Dan was diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer. Overnight, life became a whirlwind of surgeries, drug trials, and caregiving — all while trying to hold onto hope.

In this moving episode, Karla shares:

• The shock of a rare diagnosis in young adulthood

• Becoming a full-time caregiver while balancing work and finances

• The phone call that told her Dan had just one week to live

• Their last-minute wedding in his father’s garden before hospice care

• The decision not to use Dan’s stored sperm after his death

• How she rebuilt her life while keeping Dan’s memory visible

This is a story about love, logistics, loss — and the impossible choices we make when time runs out.

In this episode, Rosie Moss speaks with Rachel Powell, who lost her husband Andre to suicide after years of battling undiagnosed depression, sex addiction, and harmful church dynamics.

Rachel opens up about the reality of living in a marriage marked by broken boundaries, secrecy, and the crushing weight of spiritual control. She explains how her attempts to set a safety plan were met with resistance, and how guilt, silence, and church pressures compounded the crisis that ended in Andre’s death.

We talk about:

• The intersection of addiction, mental health & faith communities

• Surviving suicide loss while raising children and adopted relatives

• Leaving unsafe faith spaces to protect her daughters

• The judgement she faced from family and church members

• Her journey through suicidal thoughts, therapy, and rebuilding identity

• Founding Hope Speaker to support others affected by suicide and loss

Rachel’s story is one of unflinching honesty, deep pain, and incredible resilience. She shares how honesty with her children about their father’s death has opened a path toward healing, and how community, therapy, and a safer faith space have helped her reclaim her life.

This is an episode about truth-telling, survival, and the strength it takes to rebuild when the systems meant to support you instead cause harm.

More information about Rachel Powell can be found here www.hopespeaker.com/coaching

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