'My husband died by suicide. The questions you're afraid to ask are the ones that saved me.'

Loz remembers, in vivid detail, the moment she got the phone call. 

"It was two days after my 31st birthday. I was in my kitchen preparing food with my mum and my sister," she told Mamamia.

"I was holding slimy bacon in my hands, and the phone rang."

Hastily rinsing the grease off her fingers, Loz grabbed the phone right before it rang out. It was her mother-in-law on the other end.

"I just assumed that she was wishing me a Happy Birthday," Loz said. "But she was in this huge fluster. She said, 'I need you to come get me. It's Brian. He's fallen.'"

Lauren 'Loz' Antonenko knew her then-husband had been out with his dad that morning. What she didn't know was that they were climbing a mountain.

"Brian had told me that he wanted to end his life," Loz said. "He had threatened to jump off a tall building. He always talked about that; if he was going to do it, that's what he was going to do."

Watch: 5 things about grief no one really tells you. Post continues after video.

Trying to understand why the duo had gone hiking, Loz called Brian's father.

"I knew, in that moment, as soon as he picked up the call, and the tone of his voice. I remember, I said, 'Where's Brian?' He goes, 'He's fallen'. I said, 'Is he okay?' And he goes, 'I don't know.'"

Loz fell to her knees.

"I still remember the smell of bacon on my hands," she recalled. "I remember falling to the floor, and I was basically hysterical."

What followed was a flood of emotions, from confusion, to anger, to sadness, to frustration. She and her mum then drove out to the mountain, picking up Brian's mum along the way.

"I remember looking at the sky, and there were cops there, and there was a forensic unit, and there was SES getting his body," Loz recalled.

"And it was such a nice day. The sky was so blue and the trees were so green, and the sound of the wind rushing through the trees was so beautiful. It was like all of my senses became acutely heightened. I don't know if it was just an overwhelming sense of fear or something."

The following days were a blur. 

"My friends cooked me food, and they all kept me alive, and they all stayed with me, because I didn't even know what way was up and what way was down," Loz said.

While the 31-year-old knew about Brian's mental state, her loved ones had no idea how bad things had become in the lead up to his death.

"Nobody knew that he was feeling the way he was feeling, because he masked everything," Loz said, explaining that Brian had lost his job before taking his own life.

"I'd spoken to his mother, I called the suicide prevention hotline, and we were getting help for him. He'd been prescribed some antidepressants, which he did not take."

It wasn't easy for Brian to open up.

"He was from Malaysian and Ukrainian culture, where they don't really talk about their feelings," Loz said. "I was the only person that really understood. I took it very seriously when he threatened suicide, and I was so damaged as a consequence of his death. Some people have suicidal ideation, and they talk about it. He never really did that outside of me and him."

Loz lost her husband Brian in 2016 to suicide. Image: Supplied.

On the day that Brian died, he had missed a call from his boss offering him his job back. Loz found herself paralysed by the 'What ifs?'.

"When it comes to somebody taking their own life, we always go back in time and think, 'What if this had happened, and what if that had happened, and what if I had done this, and what if I'd done that?'

"You've got the shame and the guilt. And you think, 'How much of what I've done in my life and the conversations we've had have contributed to the decision?' [To] the finality that this person has made."

Then came the anger.

"I was so angry that I was left behind, and I had to pick up the pieces. And then I was angry at his dad, and I was angry at his mum for not taking me seriously. And then I was frustrated, because I wasn't even really given a chance to grieve."

As the executor of the will, Loz had to spring into business mode. She closed down bank accounts, accessed super, and cancelled services where Brian would be sent reminders.

"Dental and optometrists, I had to cancel those because I didn't want more triggers," she said. "But I still get letters. I got a letter from a real estate agent last week addressed to me and him. It doesn't trigger me anymore like it used to, but just the sheer number of things that you're supposed to know how to do."

There was also the funeral to arrange, which Loz described as "organising a wedding without the happy ending".

"I am young, and I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I have nobody that I can speak to, that can possibly relate to what I'm going through at this time in my life," she said. 

Then, all of a sudden, the funeral was over. And, one by one, over the course of the next 18 months, Loz's friends started to pull away.

"They didn't know how to deal with me anymore. My identity had completely shifted, and they thought I didn't offer anything in the friendship. I look back at that now and I'm like, I had nothing to give. I was completely gutted and stripped away of everything that I knew to be my reality."

Slowly, with the help of a psychologist, Loz began to rebuild her life.

"I owe [the psychologist] a lot," said Loz. "She said, 'Look, right now, all of this stuff that you're going through is going to take time for you to process, and only time is able to heal… What you need to do is go find something that's going to make you feel like you're making progress.'"

So, Loz joined a gym. Every day, a half hour before closing time, she would go on the treadmill.

"I didn't talk to anybody, didn't make eye contact. I just went for half an hour, and then went home at closing time. I was the last person to leave."

One day, Loz was approached by a volunteer in the gym named Pat.

"He came up to me and said, 'Look, I really admired Brian. And I see you here. You look really lonely.'"

Pat then invited her to lift weights. At first, Loz flat out refused. But once the volunteer insisted it was how she would tone her muscles and get stronger, the widow agreed.

"That was the beginning of this new identity that I started to build," Loz told Mamamia. "It really was this gateway to this entire other life that I didn't know existed."

It was at this time that she stopped avoiding eye contact.

"I actually started talking to these stinky, middle-aged, grunty men in the gym. And I started having conversations about stuff I'd never spoken about with my friends before.

"They were talking about goal-setting, they were talking about personal development. I'm like, 'I have no idea what this is,' but I was so curious."

Six months later, Loz had built muscle, lost weight, walked on hot coals, and even entered into bodybuilding shows.  

Then came a man named Michael.

Loz remarried in 2017 to a man named Michael. Image: Instagram/@lozantonenko

Loz had met him years earlier at a local PCYC (Police Citizens Youth Club). He was teaching music while she was teaching Zumba. They quickly became friends before things turned romantic.

"I had just gone through this whole horrible thing, so our relationship, from the very get go, had to withstand this level of storm. It built this really foundational resilience in our dynamics."

The couple were on a trip to New Zealand when Michael proposed.

"He grabs me by the hand, and he starts saying all these really poetic things that are very out of character. And then he asked me to marry him. It was so spontaneous. He had no plans of even asking me. He said it just felt right. We didn't have a ring or anything. It was just such a beautiful moment."

She continued: "I got backlash from people who asked, 'How can you be so selfish? How can you remarry?'" 

"I didn't remarry because I 'got over it', but because I made peace with the complexity of holding love and loss at the same time. My heart didn't close, it expanded."

Nine years on from Brian's death, Loz has turned "the deepest depths of [her] pain and suffering into something really magnificent".

"I rebuilt not with big breakthroughs or magical turning points, but with tiny, deliberate actions," she said. "Day by day. Brick by brick. There were no shortcuts. Just small, powerful decisions to show up, move my body, nourish myself, and slowly create a life that made sense again.

"And I'm stronger for it now, physically, mentally, emotionally. Not some spiritual glow-up, but a slow, raw reclaiming of my life. I had to learn how to live again, love again… and trust that happiness wasn't off-limits just because I'd been shattered."

If you or anyone you know needs to speak with an expert, please contact your GP or in Australia, contact Lifeline (13 11 14), Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) or Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636), all of which provide trained counsellors you can talk with 24/7.

If you have been bereaved or impacted by suicide loss at any stage in your life, StandBy is a free service you can access on 1300 727 247.

Feature Image: Supplied.