Meet our 2025 Helen Bailey Blog Award nominees
June 2025
Congratulations to our three wonderful nominees, who have been put forward for our 2025 Helen Bailey blog award for best WAY blogger.
WAY Widowed and Young set up the award in memory of late WAY member Helen Bailey, who helped so many young widows and widowers through her blog Planet Grief and her book When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis.
We will now be asking our member to vote for their favourite blog and the winner will be revealed at our AGM in September.
Here’s a little bit about our brilliant nominees and the blog they have been nominated for:
Michelle
Blog nominated for: https://www.michellerigden.com/my-blog
“In the Summer of 2023, life delivered an unexpected project to my inbox, due to commence in the near future. Four months later, I held Gareth with our children, as he took his last breath, bringing with it … Project Widowhood, with its numerous subheadings.
This experience was a rollercoaster that shook our foundations. We grew, in unexpected ways, found strength, pleaded for peace & announced loudly that cancer wouldn’t destroy us. It could change our story deeply, test us whilst teaching us, it certainly did & continues to do so.
Since diagnosis day to now, a team rallied, we were not alone. The team became our foundations secured with love. Hope & gratitude weaved into our minds, guiding us through each step of our journey to this day.
The whirlwind of change, bewilderment & shock invited me to sit deep in my thoughts, to attempt to gain composure & a sense of understanding. I needed to balance compassion, sadness, and uncertainty with a desire to embrace the situation and find any joy there was to be. I aimed to learn and grow from the experience as it unfolded & I continue to do so. The lessons keep coming.
Finding my tribe, fitting in, gaining strength to hold onto hope was essential, non negotiable. Where would I find this ? WAY was discovered – a beacon of hope was inviting me to feel safe & understood.
During the Spring of 2024, I felt the urge to rise super early & sit in peace & something happened. I began to mumble… Michelle’s mumbles evolved. It wasn’t planned, was far from perfect, was filled with sunshine.
Healing my heart, mumble by mumble at a time. With the broken pieces of life, seeking joy became my mantra, weaving into the blog.
For me, it has been a healing space, has shown me a path to peace & beyond. Being nominated for this award, to learn that my words find a place to sit in the healing hearts of others holding the W badge, brings me joy, gratitude & precious hope. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Nathan
Blog nominated for Terminally Stubborn: https://medium.com/@fawbish
“My name is Nath. As of April 2025, while writing this, I am in a state of limbo. I hate the idea of being defined by ‘what has happened’ to me. Over October and November in 2024, my wife died, I lost my job and was diagnosed with coeliac disease. I not only don’t recommend losing the love of your life and your income at the same time, but I really don’t recommend doing it if you’ve also lost all your favourite comfort foods to fall back on. I could say life is s***; it isn’t. Life just is. It’s up to me, every day, to make it worth something again. I’m just so very, very tired.”
Rachel
Blog nominated for Grief Stories: https://racheloriordan.substack.com/
“My husband James died very suddenly at the end of May 2022. We had been together for 28 years. It was like a bomb going off in our lives.
We had a loving marriage with two gorgeous healthy children. We were settled after all the ups and downs of a long relationship and were looking forward to the next chapter with the girls at university.
Leaning into creativity has been a really powerful coping strategy for me. It has brought some light into the heaviness of it all. As well as my blog, I’ve been doing storytelling and poetry open mics and have found connecting with an audience incredibly moving.
The loss and grief has forced me to make changes in my life. Writing helps me think about how these changes feel. I can’t control my feelings but I can reflect on them. And I can try and tell stories about James, and my feelings, and how I try to carry it all.”
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