Breaking the pain barrier  

I WAS sitting in my automobile outside the hospital when the screaming began. It got here all of sudden — raw, animal, uncontrollable. I screamed until my throat burned and my chest ached: until there was nothing left but silence and shock. People walked past within the automobile park, unaware that my world had just ended.

Two hours earlier, my father-in-law, Gary, had died. In that moment, grief was physical — something lodged in my body quite than my thoughts. Yet, whilst the sound tore out of me, my mind ran ahead of my heart. What must my husband, Craig, be feeling? How would we tell the kids? How do you explain to 3 young lives that the person who they assumed would at all times be there simply . . . isn’t?

GRIEVING Gary has been very different from grieving my very own father — and never within the ways I expected.

When my dad died, just before my twenty third birthday, it felt like a sucker punch. He was a scientist: thoughtful, curious, vulnerable to long monologues that unravelled the world with care and logic. His death got here suddenly, from heart failure, at 74. My mum, my siblings, and I held each other tightly, buoyed by friends and partners. I used to be free to be utterly selfish in my grief, secure within the knowledge that my husband would carry me.

Life continued, and, over time, my grief softened, becoming something almost linear, shaped by gratitude for the years that we had shared.
Fourteen years later, Gary had quietly but firmly stepped into Dad’s place in my life.
Gary was someone people turned to — for wisdom, steadiness, perspective. He and Craig had chosen each other when Gary became Craig’s foster parent; later, Craig selected to take Gary’s name. Since then, Craig and I had met, married, and built a family. Florence, Henry, and Rose adored their grandpa. Gary welcomed them at any hour; played endlessly within the park; delighted of their presence. Watching him with them was one in every of my deepest joys.
Then, one week, he became unwell. I remember a FaceTime call on a Sunday morning. He brushed off his symptoms; I urged him to take care. I told him how much I hated seeing him — or my very own mum — vulnerable, because they were too essential, too loved.

That was the last conversation that we had. Two days later, Gary died from malaria, probably contracted from a mosquito bite while travelling through an airport.
The world stopped.

Gary was the person who had rescued Craig from chaos and taught him love, peace, and safety. He was the anchor in our family. And, suddenly, he was gone.

MY GRIEF was real — but so were the demands of my life. I work part-time as a physiotherapist, alongside raising three children. Craig is a priest in a big, busy, complex parish, where crises don’t politely wait.

In the weeks and months after Gary’s death, life didn’t pause. School runs still happened. Packed lunches still needed making. Patients needed kindness and encouragement. My marriage still needed care.

Finding time — and space — to grieve felt almost unimaginable.
Motherhood shaped my grief greater than anything. There was no choice to collapse inward: young children still needed reassurance, routine, bedtime stories. I learned to cry quietly, and to carry myself together until the home was asleep — not because this was noble, but since it was crucial.
In this, I discovered myself drawn to Mary — not the serene figure of stained glass, but the girl who listened, birthed, fed, loved, and ultimately stood on the foot of her son’s cross.

Mary doesn’t bypass pain. She bears it. She just isn’t asked to elucidate it. Her presence has reassured me that holding grief alongside responsibility just isn’t a failure of religion, but a deeply faithful way of life.

STILL, I needed a spot where I didn’t must carry anyone else. For me, running became that place.

I had began running in 2021, pushing a double buggy through the streets with a pre-schooler and a baby. Half-marathons followed after we moved to Weston-super-Mare. In the rawness of grief, I returned to running for headspace and freedom. Early runs were full of offended prayers — railing at God for allowing Gary to die when that mosquito could so easily have been the one killed.
Slowly, anger widened into lament.

As I ran, my thoughts stretched beyond our family. Hundreds of 1000’s die from malaria annually — despite its being preventable and treatable. Each statistic hides a story: a parent lost, a baby’s future cut short, a family attempting to make sense of a death that feels cruel and avoidable. Gary’s story just isn’t unique. It is solely one which I do know by name.

CHRISTIAN faith insists that none of those lives are anonymous. Each person is thought, loved, and seen by God. Out of that got here an issue: could I mix the liberty of running with something that honoured Gary and helped reduce the harm that malaria continues to cause?

That query became a call: to run the London Marathon and lift money for Christian Aid — a charity that Gary cared deeply about, and one which works each in immediate crisis response and long-term justice.
I’m still grieving. I still cry. I cannot make sense of Gary’s death, and I not feel the necessity to. Instead, I’m selecting to honour it with endurance, love, and faith — one step at a time.

Bethany Philbrick shall be running the London Marathon on Sunday 26 April. Her fund-raising page is at 2026tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/bethany-philbrick.