A few years ago, after my husband died, I left the city and moved to a regional seaside town. It wasn’t a grand plan, just a quiet need to start again somewhere that didn’t hold so many memories, and to be closer to family. I found myself in a place marked with the number 10.
As someone who is deeply spiritual and believes strongly in numerology, that number didn’t stay insignificant for long. Ten is often seen as a number of renewal, a return to self, a new cycle beginning after everything has been stripped back. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the effect it would have on my life. Looking back now, it feels like the beginning of something I was only just stepping into.
What I didn’t expect was what came with it.
Nearby were people who would become far more than neighbours. Aria and Camille (names changed for privacy) in particular became part of my everyday life. Camille arrived in our street just a few months after I did, moving in across the road. She too was a widow, and we bonded over that shared understanding that doesn’t need much explanation.
Camille was theatrical, outgoing, and often delightfully outrageous in the best possible way. Aria, my next-door neighbour, was our gentle, beautiful hippie, grounded and warm, alongside her much-admired husband. Then there were my other wonderful neighbours, let’s call them Rose and John, who also became part of this small, close-knit circle.
The girls shared adventures, and all of us fell into a rhythm of weekly get-togethers at each other’s homes. There were wonderful conversations, much laughter, small acts of kindness, and that steady, quiet presence that, over time, helps you rebuild without even realising it. They helped me find myself again, drawing me out of grief and back into life. And they all loved animals, which, to me, mattered more than I can properly explain.
Life moved on, as it does. Camille and I eventually relocated to another part of the district, but the friendships held. They had already grown beyond streets and postcodes.
Then, somewhere along the way, Camille and I had a falling out. It happens. Life gets complicated, words go unsaid, or said the wrong way, and before you know it, years pass. In our case, three of them. No calls, no messages, just silence where there had once been connection.
During that time, Camille moved away. Then moved again. Eventually she settled about two and a half hours south of where Aria and I now live.
Things might have stayed that way.
But early in 2025, I heard that Camille’s much-loved dog had died. Anyone who has ever loved an animal knows how deep that loss runs. I reached out, not knowing how it would be received, only knowing it felt like the right thing to do.
What I didn’t expect was what I would learn next.
Camille had been in hospital for months following a brain operation meant to stop her falling. It hadn’t worked. What followed was more than a year of her life caught in a cycle of hospital stays, setbacks, and uncertainty. We began speaking regularly on the phone. Her daughter lives in London with her family, and Camille had no one close by. The isolation she experienced is something I won’t fully unpack here, but it was profound.
By November, I found myself helping her move back to the area where Aria and I live. It wasn’t a simple decision or an easy transition. It came after the difficult reality that Camille could no longer safely live on her own. She was told she needed aged care.
That’s where she is now. Bed bound. Working, day by day, to relearn how to walk. Holding onto the belief, as I, Aria and wonderful team at Lakeside do, that this is not where Camille’s story ends. Far too young to find herself having to face that.
At the same time, Aria is navigating a loss of her own, having recently lost her husband. And somehow, the three of us, two who have already walked that road and one just beginning it, have found ourselves supporting each other in ways none of us could have predicted.
Camille, from where she is, still gives strength, whether she realises it or not.
Aria, in the midst of grief, carries a quiet gentleness that continues to hold space for others.
And I find myself alongside them both, remembering what it is to rebuild and trying to offer something of that back to both of them.
It would be easy to look at all of this and say that everything happened for a reason. And as someone who believes in signs, in patterns, in the language of numbers, I do sometimes wonder.
The number 10. A new beginning.
A separation that lasted three years, another number often tied to growth and realignment.
A return, not planned, but arriving at exactly the moment it was needed.
Camille and I arriving in the same place, at the same time in our lives, and finding ourselves surrounded by neighbours who would quietly help us rebuild. Two women, both carrying loss, not realising then how much we would come to rely on each other. What began as proximity became connection, and connection became support, each of us, in our own way, helping the other find a path forward when life had shifted beneath us.
Maybe there are threads we don’t always see at the time. Maybe there are moments that gently guide us back toward each other.
But I don’t think it’s as simple as everything being pre-written.
Because even if the signs are there… we still have to choose.
A message sent after years of silence.
A decision to show up.
A willingness to step back into someone’s life when it would have been easier not to.
And that, perhaps, is where the real meaning lies.
Not just in the belief that everything happens for a reason, but in the way we respond to the signs when they appear. The way we act on them. The way we become part of the reason someone else gets through.
Three women. Different paths. Periods of connection, of distance, and of return.
And somehow, when it matters most, we are here for each other.
Not only because the universe may have whispered…
But because we listened.
It’s a story of beginnings, of returns, and of the remarkable ways people can become each other’s reason to keep going.
Because in the end, it’s not just the universe whispering, it’s us, listening, responding, and walking forward together.
The story of Camille, Aria, and Kate is not just about loss or hardship. It’s about the quiet power of connection, the strength we find in each other, and the choices we make to show up when it matters most. It’s about noticing the signs the universe places before us, and then taking action to create meaning, love, and support.
It’s a story of beginnings, of returns, and of the remarkable ways people can become each other’s reason to keep going, when the universe whispers. And all of us can do that.
