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Sh*t People Said That Just Wasn’t True*
*at least not for me People say all sorts of crazy things to new widows. Some of it is platitudes (I’m thinking of you in this terrible time”), some of it is comforting (“remember that hilarious story your husband used to tell?”), and some of it is tough-love truth (“yes, your husband is gone, so let’s make sure your health insurance covers the kids”). I think it’s really hard to know what to say – I know I have screwed up when talking to new widows, even though I am a widow myself! So I try not to judge when people say things that are mildly insensitive or off-key. For…
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International Widows Day
A decade. That’s how long the United Nations has recognized International Widows Day – just ten years. Despite the fact that widows have faced high levels of discrimination, poverty and violence for literally thousands of years, it wasn’t until 2011 that the UN officially had an “International Widows Day.” Listen, I’m really glad that we finally have a day to raise awareness about widows around the world, but….it’s about time! Of course, being a widow in many parts of the world is not just about grief. Unfortunately in many cases, it’s also about the loss of basic stability and human rights. When I start to read about widows across the…
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Ask a Widow: What About the In-Laws?
Ok, I’m now going to answer a hot-button topic that widows write me about ALL THE TIME – yes, it’s the subject of in-laws! At least once a month, someone contacts me and asks what to do about their late spouse’s family. Sometimes, they want to know how to make sure they will still get invited to family gatherings, and that’s an easy answer for me – just tell them! (Sample wording: “I know it might seem strange to still have me over for Thanksgiving, but it would mean a lot for me to join you. I’d be happy to bring dessert!”) But some stuff is….trickier. Here’s an example taken…
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The Glamorous Cabal of Widows
We’d been singing Christmas carols for an hour, and I’d just been shot down by this cute guy across the room who I had hit on. He had a girlfriend, I reported back to my friends. “Boo!” they said, clinking glasses with me, before someone said, “but I think we should go meet the performer!” We were sitting in a furniture store at the beginning of December, in that long-ago time of 2019 when people regularly gathered indoors, and we ran over to catch the performer to say hello. He was dressed in a long white fur coat with rhinestones and a white feather hat to match. “Hi ladies!” he…
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A New Life Insurance Plan! (An Annotated Reading of the Latest Letter to Our House)
Dear Shawn, As I understand it, you have a birthday coming up soon….Happy Birthday! Well, yes, technically Shawn’s birthday is in June. He’d be 44, which seems really old, even though I am 42! But he’s frozen at 40, of course. Not LITERALLY frozen, because the ground has thawed out at this point in the year. But I digress. Back to that letter. This might be a great time to buy a new life insurance policy. Really? Tell me MORE. Have you been hearing about changes in Shawn’s life lately? DO TELL. Here’s why: Life insurance rates have just dropped to all-time lows and many companies will charge more for…
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A Review of “A Widow’s Guide to Healing” (Part 2)
Almost three years ago, in the depths of grief, I decided to go online and order every book I could on grief. I figured that maybe I’d find the answer to my question: “how am I supposed to survive this?” I found a number of great books, and I’ve reviewed them periodically on my blog. But there were a lot of terrible ones, too. Anything with a photo of the ocean on the front was usually pretty bad, and I really didn’t get much out of books written by people who’d lost a parent or a sibling. I was hopeful for the book entitled, “A Widow’s Guide to Healing” not…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
