Dating app detail that sparked love for widow

Two Sydneysiders who both lost their partners to cancer have revealed how the pair found love again after a surprise admission on a dating profile.

A couple who met after their partners both died have revealed the heartwarming way they remember each of their deceased other halves every day.

Nick Kelly and Nikki Shah met on a dating app in 2020 after both losing great loves, according to SBS Insight’s episode Navigating Widowhood. The pair were supposed to meet months before their Friday night drink in Manly but Covid threw out their plans.

The widows ended up connecting on another dating app, and are now very happily engaged. Both had been through unimaginable heartbreak, and revealed how engaging with their pasts helped them grow stronger together as a new couple.

Nick and Nicole

Nick and Nicole had just welcomed their son, Xander, into the world when their lives were turned upside down. Nicole was diagnosed with a rare form of salivary gland cancer that had spread to her bones in September 2018, just nine months after giving birth. At first, her back and shoulder pain was dismissed as pain from picking up a newborn.

Nick Kelly's wife Nicole passed away from cancer. Picture: Supplied

“She was an occupational therapist, and she knew pretty quickly that things weren’t good. She had a very good sense of self, and that’s why she pushed to get checked,” Mr Kelly told news.com.au.

As soon as she was diagnosed, the young family received a high level of care through the hospital. Nicole’s first chemotherapy was on Xavier’s first birthday. Within six weeks, she was in a wheelchair.

Throughout Nicole’s 15 month battle before her death, she never buried her head in the sand about the possibility of what was likely to come.

“The amount of pain she endured along the way, I never need to witness again in my life. No one should have to go through that. But she was able to fight exceptionally hard for all of us, but at the same time preparing us for a life without her,” Mr Kelly said.

He said if he was in her position, he doesn’t think he could have been as selfless as Nicole was with giving up things such as bath time with Xander so Mr Kelly could learn what to do.

The new dad recalled a particularly vivid moment when the duo were on a trip to pick out a plot at the cemetery for his wife, with her father calling to see what they were up to.

Mr Kelly and his son Xander. Picture: Supplied

“I remember him pausing and unsure where to go with that, but we had a giggle about it and picked out a spot for her and I and went and had lunch after,” he said.

Mr Kelly said it was important for his wife to be part of those decisions, like her idea to have glitter at her funeral so people could take some and find it months later and think of her.

Nikki and Mike

Ms Shah met Mike through mutual friends during the Anzac Day long weekend, and the pair were quickly glued to the TV as a snowboarding competition was on and they both loved the sport. The duo became best friends, but it wasn’t until Mike was in remission and confessed he was falling madly in love with Ms Shah that they got together.

“I was very apprehensive initially because I thought it would damage our friendship that we had spent so much building but I think something like cancer with somebody, we saw the best and the worst of each other,” she said.

“It broke me the day he told me he had cancer. And, after that every single appointment, every single day he had to go in for chemotherapy, every night he was in hospital I was by his side. There was no judgment as to what was going on.”

Unfortunately, Mike’s cancer returned three months later with spots discovered on his lungs. Ms Shah said it broke both of them because they thought they were moving on with their lives, so joyous at being together.

For three months Mike needed to wait to see the rate at which the spots were growing, and doctors decided they couldn’t operate. It devastated his friends, family and Ms Shah. He decided not to go through chemotherapy this time, and so he and Ms Shah started to prepare for what was to come.

Nick Kelly and Nikki Shah met on a dating app. Picture: Supplied

“I had a childhood friend who passed away from that cancer, and that it was a rare type of cancer that not everyone had dealt with,” Ms Shah said.

“I knew what it would be like not confronting what could happen because I saw first-hand …”

Ms Shah said she knew that talking about death was hard, but sometimes it absolutely needed to happen.

Mike passed away in 2018 from the cancer, a year after the couple began dating.

Navigating the grief

Mr Kelly said there was so much paperwork in the immediate aftermath, that it was almost like being on autopilot. He said the hardest part of grief was later, when Xander would ask for his mum.

“And he knew, we talked about death with him before she went. We continue to talk about death openly at home. We do not shy away from it,” he said.

“As a society we tend to.”

Mr Kelly said each year at school he has to talk to Xander’s teachers because he is aware his son, who is now in Year 2, may say things that other kids don’t understand or haven’t experienced.

For Ms Shah, she said there was no choice but to cope. But, she pointed out with cancer, compared to other ways people die, you can say goodbye and grieve.

“To be honest, I grieved about losing him way before. The day the consultant said they couldn’t operate on his lungs was the day I started to say goodbye to him,” she said.

“And not in a sense of walking away, but in the sense we knew it was coming.”

She said it was “such a privilege” to be able to say goodbye to someone. However, despite the SBS episode’s title, Ms Shah has never identified with the term widow as she and Mike weren’t married. She said she didn’t like to put labels on things and that Mike will always have a huge place in her heart, and what she does for work is all because of him.

Finding love after loss

Mr Kelly and Nicole were together for 18 years, meeting at university. Before she passed away, his wife had told him how she wanted him to move on and give Xander a sibling. He had never used a dating app before, saying it was a novelty he’d seen his mates use.

“Initially, I didn’t have anything in my profile about my experiences but I wanted to bring it up because it was unfair to buy a coffee — because this was during Covid when dates were walks at midday — and reveal I was a widow,” he said.

He remembered sitting in a pub with a mate and saying he planned to put the fact he was a widow on his profile, much to his friend’s surprise. However, he said it was the best filter to find people who could handle such a massive thing. And, Ms Shah said the detail “intrigued” her.

“I think for me anyone putting anything like that showed a sense of honesty, and all that. I found him attractive and all of that, but it was on an app so you don’t get much information,” she said.

The pair quickly learned that they had so much in common. Now, they are happily engaged and Xander has a little brother named Leo.

The pair have given Xander a little brother. Picture: Supplied

Never forgetting their past

Mr Kelly said when it came to dating again, he needed someone to not only accept his past but to engage with it.

“And what I mean by that is, I have a little boy whose mum died. We will continue to talk about his mum forever,” he said.

“She left us legacy videos. I want to play those in front of my new partner. That’s hard for someone to be OK with that. Nikki was the only person who I met because she engaged with it, and probably because she’s been through it herself.”

He said Ms Shah asks questions about where Xander’s mannerisms come from, whether Nicole also had the same trait. He said when the couple eats spicy food, he jokes that Mike would have loved it because he was a huge spice fan.

Ms Shah said the loss the pair both share is a very big part of their everyday lives, something she admitted others may find strange. But she said in their home there are pictures of both Nicole and Mike, and the family says a prayer to their “angels up in heaven” every night.

The family speak about navigating love after loss. Picture: Supplied

The couple are planning their wedding overseas in August, and all of Nicole’s family will be there.

“I call them my in-laws, which some people might find strange, but they are because they will always be part of our lives. As much as they lost Nicole, they haven’t lost everything they have with Nick and Xander,” she said.

“It’s a beautiful thing we are all able to live together and live in memory of her. I wish I got to meet her.”

Why the couple are sharing their story

“I think through talking about it I realised so many people have a story to share. And it’s not necessarily loss but it can be other things,” he said.

Mr Kelly said it was interesting appearing on the SBS show, and recalling the phrase “we don’t move on, we move forward”. He said the experience doesn’t define widows but it does shape them, as, before he lost Nicole to cancer, he was scared to ask people questions that may upset them but now he is actively trying to encourage people to do so.

SBS Insight airs at 8.30pm on Tuesday, and can also be watched on SBS On Demand

Originally published as Dating app detail that sparked love for widow