13 Years On: Honouring Grief and Finding Joy with Bridget Jones - Mad About the Boy

By Nicola Campbell-Turnbull

Sending him balloon messages when the kids were little but no, we wouldn’t anymore!

Thirteen years ago, on February 25th at 3.01 pm, my husband died. Colin. He was 38. I was 36. We met when I was 25 and he was 27. His sudden death left me as the sole parent to our two babies—Evie, 22 months, and Isla, just nine weeks old. He was one of life’s good ones—charismatic, funny, joyful, kind, and loving. And, above all, a brilliant dad, even if only for a short time.

Colin and I always had silly songs we sang together, usually about the more ‘fashion’ pieces in my wardrobe. The top that sparked a tribal chant, or the dress that inspired a full Julie Andrews-style Climb Every Mountain, complete with arms flung wide. That continued when we had kids. Bedtime was usually accompanied by the CBeebies goodnight song or dinner would have some made up ditty about sweet potato mush. As a successful lawyer—like Colin Firth in Bridget Jones—he didn’t always make bedtimes or dinner, but he tried as often as he could and I wish I had recorded every one.

Thirteen years. In that time, my girls and I have marked his deathaversary in all sorts of ways. We’ve let off balloons with pictures the kids made (no more of that—we know better now), tied flowers to benches, climbed hills, and spent time with friends who knew him, loving the way they see traces of him in his daughters.

But what to do thirteen years on, to mark the day that changed the course of our lives? The build-up still gnaws, but—so the world says—isn’t grief meant to fade with time?

No. Grief changes over time, but it never really fades. And I still feel the pull to honour certain dates, to mark them for him, for us, for what might have been. But this year, instead of pulling in the kids—who, of course, miss having a dad, but only know him through my memories, the stories of friends and family, and oh-so-many photos—I decided the day was for me.

Over time, this day has become more my indulgence than theirs. So I shut down my work laptop and gave myself some much-needed me time, followed by some full-throttle wallow time. To mark his death, I booked a solo ticket to see Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy at the Everyman Cinema in Edinburgh. Just me. At 1.30 pm. On February 25th, 2025. Thirteen years after Colin died.

It felt wonderful. Indulgent. And I knew it would make me cry. Perfect.

My sister, who saw it last week, said, “By no means should you see this film, this week especially.”

Ah ha. No. I wanted it all—the death, the grief, the similarities. I wanted to pick the scab and let it be sore.

Like so many women my age, I’ve grown up with Bridget. I was her in my madcap 20s. Less so in the mixed-up drug fiascos and “who’s the dad?” moments, but still—here she is again. Widowed. Bring me Bridget now.

So there I was, me and my hand-delivered popcorn and Diet Coke, settling in.

Photo: Jay Maidment / © Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

Ten minutes in and it’s clear Mark Darcy, like Colin, is dead. The pinstripes he wore, the successful lawyerly things he did, the way he loved her, parented with her, all gone, he was gone, like Colin. But, as Bridget says, he is still there, in energy. That's what I always say to my kids too.

Bridget is left trying to find her way forward. Ditto. She mucks it up here and there...yes. But there are bed dancing moments...ours were actually in the kitchen and to Kacey Musgrave Follow Your Arrow and not to Bowie’s Modern Love...but the sentiment was the same. Three muskateers navigating grief and finding joy in little things together even when the big hole someone soooo special has left behind is soooo huge.

The energy thing though! When someone dies, that energy has to go somewhere. I don’t think of it as heaven. I don’t imagine my Colin (not Colin Firth) on a cloud, looking down on us. But I feel him in little things - all the time. His goodness. The person who made me a better person (less of a bitch) is still here, around us.

It might be in an owl, like the film, a white feather floating by (we used to collect those when the kids were little) or a dandelion wish. It might be a song on the radio. A call from someone, just when I need it.

And this film got that.

When our two gorgeous girls asked what I’d be doing to mark D-day, they knew I might indulge or wallow in my sad. I told them I had a very indulgent facial lined up, followed by Bridget Jones. They were mostly concerned I’d undo the good work of the facial with weeping.

But actually, this was cathartic joy. Some may detest the Bridget Jones films, but this one felt like an honest and true exploration of grief. There were silly moments as well as joyful ones despite the ache of grief. Unrealistic ones (yes, the snow in London thing again). But suspend your cynicism and indulge me—this film was the grief fest I needed.

As the final moments unfolded, I wanted to stand up and shout to the whole cinema, “See! See! That’s what I mean!” It captured something. The way someone can be gone, and yet not. The way grief never fully leaves you, but somehow, you carry on. You find new joys. You move forward, but you don’t forget. You’ll always miss catching their eye when the kids are doing some little (or big) thing that makes you burst with pride. You’ll pine for them at parents evenings. You’ll want them to sneak out the bedroom with you at bedtime, kids successfully asleep. All those little things. But you have to just believe they are kind of there with you along the way.

I’m not Bridget Jones. I don’t have a 29-year-old boyfriend. But that final sentiment—that he’s around, that he’s watching you (in owl form, feathers, dandelion wishes or through songs on the radio), is just how I feel. And that’s what’s kept me going, as well as our kids and them having his genetics encased in them, that and the love and support of those friends and family who have stuck by me since he’s been gone. These are the things that have held me all these years and that is what resonated as I watched. It all struck a chord. And, honestly, it was the perfect way to mark my D-day. Some will love this film. Some will hate it. But for me, on this day, it was exactly what I needed.