Losing your other half is one of the most tragic things a person can go through in life. Disney Animator Andrews only had three married years with his lovely with Joy.
She got sick while Gary was on a trip to Canada.
“She looked a bit tired, but not seriously ill. The last thing I said to her was: ‘Look after yourself, I love you,'” Gary said, according to Metro. “The next day, Thursday, I texted her: ‘How’s it going? Want to chat?’ She texted back: ‘Not really, try me later.’”
They thought she had the flu. It turned out that she had sepsis and her organs failed.
By the time Gary arrived back to the UK to be by his wife side, his beloved had already passed.
But the hardest task lay before him, he had to tell their two children that their mother died.
“Telling them is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I took them into the garden and hugged them,” Gary explained. “I will never forget their almost animal sounds of grief when they realized Mummy wasn’t coming home.”
The night his wife died he drew a heart that was broken in two with a teardrop at the bottom.
“I was crying so hard it was difficult to focus on the page. I was drawing through tears,” he told Daily Mail. “Joy had been my soulmate for 19 years. She was beautiful, kind, generous and funny. We did everything together. When I lost her, I felt half of me had gone.”
He tried to make life as normal as possible for his children.
He also continued his Doodle Diary.
Their TV-watching ritual also had to stay the same.
“‘Strictly’ was Joy and Lily’s favoritee program and I’d sit in the corner, reading a book or making sarcastic comments while Ben half-watched it,” says Gary, who also worked on the Beatrix Potter films.
“So on that first Saturday without Joy, I took Mummy’s place on the sofa. She always had the best seat — and we cuddled up and watched it together. Because that’s what Joy would have wanted us to do.”
Gary began doodling about his new life as a single dad.
“As an adult, you look back with nostalgia and grieve for the past and what you’ve lost, but children live in the here and now. They feel the pain, cry and then ask: ‘What’s for tea?” Gary said.
“Life had to carry on. So, yes, there were tears of sadness but also acceptance. One book was closing and another chapter was opening with just the three of us, instead of four.”
Gary’s Doodle Diary serves as a form of release for him and helps him to cope with the loss of his wife.
“The Diaries are my therapy. After a bad day, it’s like letting off a little bit of steam, opening a pressure valve, and it lets my friends know how I’m doing,” he explains. “There are funny things too. I like the funny, but sometimes there are days when nothing is funny at all and I need to express that as well.”
You can find Gary’s drawings on Twitter here.
“I still think about Joy all day and every day. The grief is always there in the background,” he says. “I have days when I want to howl with grief, punch the sofa and scream: ‘Why?’ Then I put those feelings away, because I owe it to the children — and to Joy — to make sure their lives remain happy and normal.”
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