Mary Edwar was holding hands with her husband Kareem Ghattas outside St Mark's Coptic cathedral in Alexandria after the packed church service with some 700 other families a year ago when the bomb went off and they were both thrown into the air.

When she saw blood seeping from his head she knew then that his situation was, in her word, 'irreparable'. The couple had been married a year and eight months, and Mary was two and a half months pregnant, expecting their first child. Her life was full of joy that Palm Sunday in 2017.

Now, aged just 33, after losing her husband and suffering a miscarriage she has abandoned any desire to have children and, though remarkably positive, she remains heartbroken and cannot bear to look at the palm leaves that are again everywhere around the church.

'He was a wonderful man, a very normal man, not overly spiritual,' Mary told Christian Today and several other media outlets at the ancient church yesterday afternoon, on the eve of Palm Sunday which this year is today in the Orthodox church calendar here. Speaking in Arabic with a translator from the Christian broadcaster in the region, SAT-7, she added of Kareem, who was 43 when he died: 'He lived a normal life, he visited his mum and dad, he served in the church and his heart was in heaven.'

Mary herself suffered multiple shrapnel wounds in the legs and stomach, and was hospitalised for nine days after the suicide attack on April 9, which killed 18 people and wounded at least 48, It coincided with another in Tanta, leaving a combined total of 45 deaths and more than a hundred injuries.

Footage from a church security camera showed the Alexandria bomber walking through an open gate before being directed toward a metal detector which was guarded by police officers. Stopped by a Muslim officer, the man then detonated his explosives outside the church, where hundreds had gathered for this, the most important church occasion of the year in Egypt alongside Good Friday and Easter Day (Coptic Pope Tawadros II, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, was inside St Mark's but was not harmed).

Yesterday, the Christian community of many hundreds at this coastal city were slowly but steadily gathering in the spring sunshine in preparation for this morning's service. Entering through the checkpoint with two metal detectors, you are immediately struck by the images among the palms of what many here call the eight Christians martyrs of the attack, which was claimed by Islamic State and which in the event actually killed more Muslims – police and passers by – than Christians.

Kareem was the final Christian to die, a week after the attack. Mary says now that he prophesied his own death on a number of occasions, tellling her that she would be 'the wife of a martyr' and giving her instructions to 'go out and serve the church' in the event.

Refusing to allow her face to be photographed, through seflessness not security fears, that is exactly what Mary has done since her own recovery after multiple surgeries.

And her faith has grown, not diminished. Asked now how she is coping, Mary says she has good days and bad days, but: 'God sent me a lot of consolation, especially during the fasting [of Lent]. I don't want the fasting to come to an end because Jesus sends me a lot of consolation.' She describes being told by a doctor on Maundy Thursday that Kareem would live and praying for him to be raised like Lazarus. But, she says, 'eventually I submitted to God's will'. Now, she says that 'God chose him to be a martyr, to give him glory and honour'.

She comes even more regularly to church now, and there is not even the slightest hint of the feeling 'Why me?': 'I try to do things that we did together; it gives me pain but it also gives me consolation,' she says. 'I pray a lot and it helps me. A lot of times I break down but I resort to prayer.'

Yes, she does get angry, and when she was languishing in hospital she felt like a 'volcano' was inside her, but reading the Bible calmed the storm, she says, especially when she focused on Christ's Passion and crucifixion.

'The other thing that gives me consolation is the feeling that my husband is with me all the time.' Before, he worked day and night, as an accountant and selling medicines, but now she can talk to him about ordinary things.

There is an aura of calm around Mary, as there is with Father Kyrilos Fathy, a priest here since February 2010. He had just started to drive out of the church compound when the bomb struck.

'After Mass had ended, I came outside, the yard was full of young people helping. I said 'Hi' and got into my car, turned it towards the gate, with three people stopping me to say 'Hi', and then back into my car and began to drive...'

Asked if he knew immediately what had happened, he pauses and takes a deep breath. 'I expected it might be a bomb but didn't realise how big would be the impact. I got out the car – people were expecting other attacks and the injured ran into the church. Then the ambulances started to come.'

The priest says he is not afraid, and he does not look it, but he does admit that he worries such an attack could happen again: 'Why not?' However, like Mary, he has forgiven the attacker.

Outside the church yesterday, tears were visible in the eyes of Mattar Gerges, a palm seller who recalled his friend Gerges Ghattas who also died in the attack. 'He was a good man,' he said simply in English.

But it must be stressed that sadness is far from the overall picture among Christians in Egypt this Easter. The community which makes up some 10 per cent of the country's population is optimistic about the future, one year after the Palm Sunday bombings made headlines around the world.

On Friday, more than a thousand smiling Christians of multiple denominations packed out the evangelical KDEC church in Cairo as worshippers held their hands aloft and sang songs including a rendition of the hymn 'How Great Thou Art' in Arabic. Like many services here, this one was broadcast live by SAT-7, the satellite television network which reaches millions of Christians in 25 countries across the Arab world in the Middle East and north Africa.

In the meantime, back at St Mark's Alexandria, Mary Edwar is resolute.

Asked about her hopes for the future, she says simply: 'Kareem's will was for me to go out and serve the church. My hope is to serve the church and nothing else.'

Translations by Mary Joseph of Sat-7. Follow James Macintyre on Twitter @James_Macintyre