A year without Sarah: memory, loss and the pain of Mother’s Day emails

Sarah’s husband, Kristian Glynn, with their children Ruby and Oisin and their dog Murphy at home in London. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

For some of the bereaved, the torrent of promotional Mother’s Day emails at this time of year is more upsetting than the day itself. This is certainly the case for Kristian Glynn, whose wife, the accomplished journalist Sarah Hughes, died of cancer last April aged 48.

“Those messages are relentless,” he tells me, as he and their two teenage children approach the first anniversary of her death.