Dubai Eye Interview about My Loss Experience and HerSphere Mission
Last week I sat down with Katie Chambers on Dubai Eye 103.8's The Agenda and spoke, live, about losing my husband and about the strange, exhausting, often absurd process of what comes after. I said yes to that interview because I believe silence has done more damage to grieving families in this country than anyone likes to admit. But saying yes and actually sitting in that studio chair were two very different things.
Live Interview with Anna Heenan—Founder of Herphere—on Dubai Eye—about her partner's loss experience and why HerSphere exists.
What happened
My husband became very ill, very quickly. He was admitted to hospital just before New Year's Eve and spent five weeks there. I stayed with him through the High Dependency Unit, then he was intubated and moved to ICU, where I could only visit, not stay. One night I got the call I had been dreading: that he might not survive until morning. I drove to the hospital hoping for some kind of miracle. By half past five in the morning, he was gone.
It happened so fast that the image of him dying will stay with me forever. I am still, seven and a half months later, getting through it rather than over it. Some days that distinction matters a great deal.
The part almost nobody discusses
We all brace ourselves for grief. What surprised me was everything that arrives alongside it, uninvited and entirely indifferent to your emotional state. Death certificates. Police clearance. Cremation arrangements. Legalisation of documents through the embassy. Inheritance. Banks. Courts. Employers. Property. All of it landing at once, while your mind is barely able to hold a single thought in place.
I was fortunate that my family stepped in for those very first days- the death certificate, the police clearance, the embassy paperwork- because I genuinely was not capable of managing it myself. The hospital guided us through that initial stage too, and I remain grateful for it. But that support had a clear beginning and a clear end. Once it stopped, I was navigating almost everything alone.
Twelve rejections, and counting
The hardest part, without question, was the inheritance certificate. It took me five months in total. I have since spoken to other widows for whom it took nine months, despite having a will in place. I lost count of the rejected online applications, each one bounced back for something slightly different, with no checklist ever telling me everything I needed to prepare in advance. Every visit to the court meant meeting a different person, which meant explaining the whole story again from the beginning, at a point in my life when I had no emotional capacity left to spare.
What surprised me most, in the end, was not the paperwork itself. It was how quickly the world expects you to function normally again. Bills do not pause. Legal deadlines do not pause. And you are expected to make serious financial and legal decisions while barely able to string a sentence together, all while trying to keep everyday family life running for the people who still depend on you.
The moment that changed everything
I want to be honest about what actually pushed me to build HerSphere, because it was not one particular form or one particular delay. It was a moment at the court, when I was already exhausted and overwhelmed, and I was met with what felt like complete indifference. I remember feeling incredibly small in that moment, and thinking, how many other widows have stood exactly here, feeling exactly like this.
We did not choose this. Life happened to us. And in that moment I decided there had to be a better way.
Why HerSphere exists
HerSphere started as a simple idea, a blog where I could document what I had learned so another widow would not have to repeat the same exhausting trial and error. It has since grown into something larger, a community for women in the UAE who are navigating life after loss or rebuilding through a major transition, alongside a network of trusted professionals who can offer real, practical support rather than a generic checklist.
What I needed most, in those first weeks, was not someone to solve everything for me. It was a guide, someone who understood the process well enough to say, don't worry about all of it today; here is simply the first step. That is what I hear from other women too, again and again. They rarely expect anyone to carry the whole burden for them. They just want to know where to turn next.
If you are reading this and currently in the middle of your own version of this experience, I want to say plainly: you do not have to figure it all out today. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed not to know what comes next. Ask for help, and take it one step at a time.
And if HerSphere can one day be the place where a woman arrives and says, my husband has just died, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and we are able to help her find that first step, then everything I have been through will have had a purpose.
If you need the steps, not just the story
Everything I've described above, the certificates, the banks, the courts, the waiting, is laid out step by step in the Widow's E-Guide, a free resource I put together so no woman has to learn it the way I did, through trial and error while grieving. [Download the Widow's E-Guide here.]
Join the community
If you would like to be part of these conversations as they happen, not just read about them afterwards, come and join HerSphere UAE on Facebook. It's where I share upcoming events, free resources, and where we talk honestly about all of this together. As well as HerSphere Whatsapp channel.
If you are navigating loss or rebuilding your life in the UAE, we would love to welcome you into the HerSphere community. It is free to join. Just sign up here.
Source
The Agenda with Katie Chambers, Dubai Eye 103.8, 7 September 2026 (live radio interview)
