I know her through a hobby, although for reasons not particularly clear to me, I was more friendly with her DH (also involved in the hobby). Not best friends by any means, but we'd chat at events.
He became seriously ill about 4 years ago and I think I was a decent friend to him during his illness, kept in touch, went for coffee, sent gifts when he was in hospital and when he became housebound visited every few weeks. I tried to be decent, but again never considered myself as a close friend. Then he died, right at the beginning of lockdown. Tiny funeral because of restrictions, but I went and stood outside the crem to pay my respects and I "attended" the online wake their son arranged.
Within weeks my DH was diagnosed with a very similar illness. To begin with everyone hoped treatment would be successful and to my shame, I kept my distance from friend's widow. I just didn't want to know that there could be a tragic outcome and had a lot on my plate at the time.
To cut a long story short, DH died about 2 years after my friend.
I still see friend's widow at events and we chat about our very sad common ground. Both starting to try and find our way in our new lives and in need of people to do it with, but I feel so guilty that I wasn't a good friend to her when her DH died.
Do you think she's feeling that too? We had coffee at the weekend (after an event) and it was really lovely to chat to someone who gets it. It wasn't a maudlin conversation, more about the practicalities of being a woman on your own. I enjoyed it and was thinking of asking of she fancies a night out one weekend soon.