Championing life after loss for the armed forces family

Our Goal – Championing life after loss for the armed forces family.

I thought I knew everything about being an armed forces spouse, the mobility; eight schools for our girls, the deployment; six tours of Afghanistan, abandoning my career to take piece meal jobs. Months and years apart for the duration of the Afghan conflict…

Then on 8th March 2021, my husband of 17 years, Colonel Nick Carrell, died from a rapid and aggressive form of brain cancer, whilst still serving. 

It was then I realised that I didn’t know everything about being an army spouse. I didn’t know that we had 93 days to vacate our home, that my children would soon become ineligible for their educational bursaries, that my visiting officer would be permitted to support my devastated little family for just six weeks, as they had other more important things for her to do elsewhere.

I learned that after two weeks, no one from the MoD calls, that they think when they’re handed you a purple pack and an indecent pension that they have “extracted from the bereaved family as clinically as possible “ , their words not mine. I learned that no one talks about transition for the spouse or breakfast clubs or drop ins. And for our bereaved children they lose their home, their school, their identity and their parent. 

We had to leave the community we’d lived in for almost two decades – were we still armed forces ? No, we’re not serving. Were we veterans ? No we never served. 

So who are we? We’re adrift and so are so many other military bereaved families. 

I am working to change the narrative around our military bereaved, to bring together the families, the MoD, the armed forces charity sector, the NHS and other support pathways because we must do better for families who have lost their loved ones whilst serving this country.

This was our last homecoming. Nick had been in Kabul for 8 months with no R&R.

Please help me to spread the word to help raise awareness in galvanising better support to the military bereaved community and in bringing about systemic change in the space that the armed forces community gives to families like mine. Thanks for reading. 

Jilly Carrell

Beyond the Wire Founder