As a widow, I know the strangeness of grief and that ghosts come in many forms | Kat Lister

My husband died three years ago, but a credit card can conjure memories of him, blurring the line between now' and then'

Grief totems aren't always easy to rationalise. Once a loved one has departed, their footprints can be found everywhere and they often linger in the most unexpected places. A toothbrush casually discarded by the sink. An airline boarding pass shoved into a tatty paperback novel. A few months after my husband died in 2018, I found his credit card during a routine search for my trainers, and with a reverence one might pay a precious artefact, I stroked my fingers over the braille of his name before placing it back inside his wallet.

I've got ghosts on my phone," the Bafta-winning writer, director and actor Mark Gatiss mused in an interview with the Radio Times. I know this isn't unique to me but I've lost my mum, my sister, my brother-in-law and now my dad, and there is something very odd about being orphaned, even at 54."

Kat Lister is author of The Elements: A Widowhood