I WAS sitting in my car outside the hospital when the screaming started. It came without warning — 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 in the car 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 rather than my thoughts. Yet, even as 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 children? How do you explain to three young lives that the man who they assumed would always be there simply . . . isn’t?
GRIEVING Gary has been very different from grieving my own father — and not in the ways I expected.
When my dad died, just before my 23rd birthday, it felt like a sucker punch. He was a scientist: thoughtful, curious, prone to long monologues that unravelled the world with care and logic. His death came suddenly, from heart failure, at 74. My mum, my siblings, and I held one another tightly, buoyed by friends and partners. I was free to be utterly selfish in my grief, safe in 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 one another when Gary became Craig’s foster parent; later, Craig chose 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 in the park; delighted in their presence. Watching him with them was one 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 own mum — vulnerable, because they were too important, 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 man 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 large, busy, complex parish, where crises do not politely wait.
In the weeks and months after Gary’s death, life did not 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 impossible.
Motherhood shaped my grief more than anything else. There was no option to collapse inward: small children still needed reassurance, routine, bedtime stories. I learned to cry quietly, and to hold myself together until the house was asleep — not because this was noble, but because it was necessary.
In this, I found myself drawn to Mary — not the serene figure of stained glass, but the woman who listened, birthed, fed, loved, and ultimately stood at the foot of her son’s cross.
Mary does not bypass pain. She bears it. She is not asked to explain it. Her presence has reassured me that holding grief alongside responsibility is not a failure of faith, but a deeply faithful way of living.
STILL, I needed a place where I did not have to carry anyone else. For me, running became that place.
I had started 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 filled with angry 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 thousands die from malaria each year — despite its being preventable and treatable. Each statistic hides a story: a parent lost, a child’s future cut short, a family trying to make sense of a death that feels cruel and avoidable. Gary’s story is not unique. It is simply one that I know by name.
CHRISTIAN faith insists that none of these lives are anonymous. Each person is known, loved, and seen by God. Out of that came a question: could I combine the freedom of running with something that honoured Gary and helped reduce the harm that malaria continues to cause?
That question became a decision: to run the London Marathon and raise money for Christian Aid — a charity that Gary cared deeply about, and one that works both in immediate crisis response and long-term justice.
I am still grieving. I still cry. I cannot make sense of Gary’s death, and I no longer feel the need to. Instead, I am choosing to honour it with endurance, love, and faith — one step at a time.
Bethany Philbrick will be running the London Marathon on Sunday 26 April. Her fund-raising page is at 2026tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/bethany-philbrick.
