How do you go about losing your partner you’ve spent most of your life with?

Few moments in life are as deeply lonely as the day after a loved one’s funeral.

And if the loss is of a lifelong companion – someone’s “strength and permanence,” as the queen so elegantly described her 73-year-old husband, the Duke of Edinburgh – then marks the point where a life, irrevocably changed, she must somehow wear without them.

The important documents and the administrator that always accompanies a death are largely made. The benefactors and comforters paid their respects and shared their memories.

But when the door finally closes and Elizabeth is left alone without Philip, the man who dedicated her life to being by her side, what then?

As a doula at the end of life, it’s a situation I know all too well. I offer practical and emotional support at the end.

Sometimes we are called doulas of death, midwives of death, comrades at the end of life or midwives of the soul. It is a new profession and I work closely with a funeral director, but also with NHS palliative care services.

We’re afraid of death, so we don’t like to talk about it. One of my jobs is to start a conversation with my family so that people can live well to the last breath.

I’m also there to support my loved ones, with whom I stay in touch for as long as they want – and one of the things I’ve learned about pain is that this raw, universal emotion doesn’t follow any set pattern.

We can grieve the loss of everything we love: a friendship, a job, a pet or a child who is finally flying the nest, and this year, in particular, we have all had a fair share of pain.

We have lost our freedoms, business and livelihood and our ability to embrace and hold on.

But the pain we feel about the death of those closest to us is permanent and remains with us for the rest of our days. In this, the Queen is not alone.

Many have faced the death of a lifelong partner, leaving a huge hole. Many people who have not yet suffered such a loss wonder, “How would I cope?” It can be an overwhelming, terrifying thought.

My answer is always the same: there is no single way to grieve, no pattern for how to do it best.

A respected counselor for pain, Dr. Lois Tonkin, believed that pain was not something to “go through,” but something we must learn to live with.

While feelings of loss do not diminish, our pain becomes easier to manage as our lives evolve and grow.

Pain can often be related to routines once shared with partners. They are so intertwined with their daily lives that they are like muscle memory – so automatic that they are barely aware of them.

Take a couple I worked with not long ago – Alice and Karl, who had been married for 48 years. After Alice died, Karl told me that he was still lying on her side of the bed every morning to touch her – forgetting, at that moment, that he had left.

He described it to me as “to lose it again every morning.”

Once a week, they changed their bed linen together. Karl described it as a dance.

After she left, he asked me, “How can I make our own bed?” For anyone in Karl’s position, there are no easy answers. The little things make up a life together and we miss them the most.

The walls of each room hold a thousand stories for the suffering. Their part of the bed; their favorite cup; the rosemary they planted in the garden; their shoes scattered in the hallway.

The remnants of a loved one’s existence penetrate every shrimp. But although death puts an end to a life, it cannot – cannot – end a relationship.

John, another customer, wakes up every morning and makes two cups of coffee – one for himself, one for his wife, Alison, who died five years ago. At first, it was mindless.

This was his business, a romantic ritual he had performed every day during their 50-year marriage and had forgotten that she was no longer there to drink it. Then it became a ritual, a source of comfort.

Another client, Iris, told me she was still talking to her husband Frank. She says their one-sided talks help her feel closer to him.

There is nothing wrong with doing any of these things, although to a stranger it must seem bizarre. But after spending so much time with so many grieving families, I can assure you it’s completely normal.

Iris keeps talking to Frank, and John continues to make her coffee for Alison, because when you take the normal rituals of life, how are you?

It’s not about pretending I’m still alive, it’s about continuing to do something meaningful – having a ritual when the world has turned upside down.

There is only one thing that each of my clients experienced at one time: a deep, indescribable sadness. This can happen at any time and in different ways. Not everyone cries. Some interrupt.

Others struggle to remember the happy times they shared with their partner, especially if they became carers for them or the end of their lives was particularly tumultuous.

One client, Janice, always liked to dance with her husband Malcolm, who was a miner.

When he developed the lung of the miner, he stopped dancing. The movement was difficult and related to oxygen. Years after Malcolm died, Janice was furious and bitter that she had lost ten years of caring for him when she had not danced.

Then one night he started dancing again. She told me that she spent the whole evening crying, but that it was one of the most cathartic moments in her life, because it rekindled her passion for something she liked and also reconnected her to Malcolm.

It is often said that time is a great healer. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, but as Janice has shown, it’s a catalyst for change.

The more we understand that pain lasts a lifetime, the less pressure must be OK. But also happiness and laughter are OK.

I worked with a couple, Peter and Helen, who had met at school. When Helen died in the 1980s, everyone believed that Peter would not survive without her because their lives were so intertwined.

But he lived another ten years. During that time, he often talked about Helen’s love for him and how she wanted him to live a very good life after he died.

Not a day went by that he didn’t miss her, but it made him realize how important the little things were. Every time she gathered her grandchildren, she did it thinking it might be the last time.

You may miss someone awful, but you can also enjoy what you have. Losing someone puts a magnifying glass on what really matters.

Sometimes all you can do is grab it with both hands.

• We all know how this ends, by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter, is published by Bloomsbury Green Tree, £ 14.99. lifedeathwhatever.com