'I miss him so much' - Tom Parker's wife Kelsey opens up about grief
The Wanted singer died in March 2022 following a battle with brain cancer
The wife of The Wanted star Tom Parker has been opening up about the impact of losing him at such a young age.
Tom died in March last year from brain cancer.
He was just 33 years old.
Kelsey Parker has told Northsound 1 at the time people would cross the road to avoid speaking to her about his death - a sign, she believes, of society's problem of discussing grief and loss.
Tom's death 'feels like yesterday'
Speaking candidly about life 18 months after his passing, she told us he still plays a big part in their young family's life.
She said: "It's so weird when you lose someone. For me it feels like yesterday, but then it feels like so long since I last saw him.
"My grief hasn't got any bigger or smaller, you learn to live around your grief.
"It doesn't mean I'm going to wake up one morning and go 'Who was Tom?'.
"You learn to live with it, it'll be with me until the day I die.
Death is the 'elephant in the room'
Kelsey says discussing loss is often the "elephant in the room" despite it being an experience we all face.
And she saw the effect of that first hand when Tom passed.
"People don't want to talk about grief, people don't want to talk about loss. People used to cross the street when he first passed away because they couldn't approach the conversation about Tom dying.
"I miss him so much, being in the house. He used to come out of the shower and be like 'I've got an invention' or 'I've got an idea'.
"You miss those little things about them, but that's why we should talk about it because I want to celebrate him and I want to talk about him."
Busting the taboo about discussing death.
Kelsey was speaking as a new survey reveals how discussing death is still seen as taboo in the UK.
- 58% of individuals consider death a taboo subject
- 56% of those hesitant to discuss death believe that initiating such conversations would actually be beneficial
- Concerns about causing distress or mis-speaking act as barriers to opening up the conversation.