"Widow to Widow powerfully links theory and practice perspectives through the extensive use of case illustrations...its comprehensive knowledge base and the challenge to the professional monopoly of bereavement care, makes this an important text for all carers, new or experienced, who are offering support to the widowed." - Linda Machin in BereavementCare Vol.25, No.2.
From a certified life coach and a widow herself, a guide to processing grief and finding meaning and purpose after the death of a spouse. A warm hug for every widow navigating her grief, pain, and loss, and thinking she will never love her life again. Joann Filomena’s Widowed is not only a shared journey through loss, but also a roadmap for rebuilding a future that makes room for hope and happiness alongside pure and beautiful grief. Widows will discover exactly what it is they need in order to move forward, and even how to dream again. Not since Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking has there been a book of such honesty and passion about the unique experience that is widowhood—a time when most women feel acutely alone and wonder how to get through the pain and confusion of their great loss. A professionally certified life coach and weight loss coach, as well as producer and host of the Widow Cast and Weight Coach podcasts, Joann Filomena speaks widow to widow, having walked this path herself after the sudden loss of her husband.
How do older women come to terms with widowhood? Are they vulnerable or courageous, predictable or creative in dealing with this life challenge? Most books about widows usually focus on younger women; this book interweaves the voices of older widows their experiences and insights to show how they have come to terms with widowhood and have recreated their lives in new, unsuspected ways. The widows speak about how they relate to their children, their friends, to men. With powerful emotions they describe their husbands’ final illnesses and deaths, and the challenging early days of widowhood. Disputing stereotypes about older women and widows, The Widowed Self allows the reader to visualize the impact of losing one’s life partner and offers a new way of thinking about widowhood. This new book by Deborah Kestin van den Hoonaard fills a void in previous work on widowhood. Rather than seeing these women as unfortunate, passive victims of life, the reader will come to appreciate the strength and creativity with which these women face one of life’s greatest challenges, a challenge that affects more than half of all women over the age of sixty-five. Widows and their families, scholars, social workers and other professionals who work with older adults will all be interested in reading The Widowed Self: The Older Woman’s Journey through Widowhood.
How do older women come to terms with widowhood? Are they vulnerable or courageous, predictable or creative in dealing with this life challenge? Most books about widows usually focus on younger women; this book interweaves the voices of older widows their experiences and insights to show how they have come to terms with widowhood and have recreated their lives in new, unsuspected ways. The widows speak about how they relate to their children, their friends, to men. With powerful emotions they describe their husbands’ final illnesses and deaths, and the challenging early days of widowhood. Disputing stereotypes about older women and widows, The Widowed Self allows the reader to visualize the impact of losing one’s life partner and offers a new way of thinking about widowhood. This new book by Deborah Kestin van den Hoonaard fills a void in previous work on widowhood. Rather than seeing these women as unfortunate, passive victims of life, the reader will come to appreciate the strength and creativity with which these women face one of life’s greatest challenges, a challenge that affects more than half of all women over the age of sixty-five. Widows and their families, scholars, social workers and other professionals who work with older adults will all be interested in reading The Widowed Self: The Older Woman’s Journey through Widowhood.
The recently widowed experience many complex problems, and an understanding of their needs and the kinds of difficulties they encounter is essential if appropriate services and help are to be mobilized. It is the old who are most likely to be widowed, and they may face this crisis at a time when they may also be adjusting to ill health and increasing infirmity, and to retirement, with its problems of role identification and adaptation to an increase in leisure and a decrease in wealth. Most will have to learn to live alone, or to uproot themselves from their home and adjust to life with relatives. Often, the elderly person will have been involved in caring for their spouse during his or her terminal illness; widowhood will mean that they have lost their main occupation. For some, who are themselves disabled, widowhood may mean that they have lost the person who cared for them, so that there is an immediate crisis as alternative sources of care need to be found. These problems have to be faced in a situation often complicated by the anxiety, loneliness, apathy, and bewilderment of bereavement. Originally published in 1982, Life After A Death presents the results of a study of the experiences and attitudes of over 350 elderly widowed men and women, their general practitioners, and their relatives, friends, and neighbours, and considers the implications of the help the widowed received, or failed to receive, from those to whom it was most likely that they would turn for support. The authors’ identification and description of the emotional and practical day-to-day needs of the widowed, and their recommendations about the potential role of the general practitioner and voluntary and social services, should be considered by all those concerned to alleviate the difficulties of the widowed, and to help them to live a better ‘life after a death’.
Are you a widowed parent navigating the overwhelming world of raising kids or teens after profound loss? You're not alone. Dive into heartfelt reflections and invaluable insights from those who truly understand: parents who've faced the unexpected sorrow of losing their partners during the prime of their lives. When your spouse or partner passes away, it can feel like you're the only one in your age group dealing with such immense grief and the challenges of single, widowed parenthood. But Jenny Lisk, founder of the Widowed Parent Institute, along with forty-eight brave moms and dads from around the globe, are here to share their journeys and lessons. Widowed Parents Unite: 52 Tips to Get Through the First Year, from One Widowed Parent to Another is more than a book—it's a lifeline. Within its pages, you'll meet parents who've lost their spouses to unforeseen tragedies, from sudden accidents to relentless illnesses. Their candid stories will resonate deeply, providing both solace and actionable advice. Inside Widowed Parents Unite, you'll discover: - Hands-on tips and strategies directly from those who've faced similar trials - Stories that reassure you you're not on this path alone - Bite-sized pieces perfect for moments when grief seems all-consuming - A curated list of resources tailor-made for widowed parents Designed especially for the heart-rending first year after loss, Widowed Parents Unite is your beacon during the storm. If the comforting words of fellow grievers, presented in short, poignant essays, sounds like the support you need in these turbulent times, then you won't want to miss Jenny Lisk's unique anthology of love, loss, and resilience. Embark on a journey towards healing and understanding. Grab your copy of Widowed Parents Unite and find a community waiting to embrace you.
This practical and inspirational guide throws out a lifeline to any woman who finds herself lost in the turbulent storms of divorce or widowhood. With understanding and humor, After He's Gone articulates the emotions specific to newly widowed and newly divorced women--as well as the emotions they have in common--and provides realistic advice on getting through the first weeks, plus a useful list of simple things women can do to feel better immediately.
A Widow’s Hope shares a unique story as a young widow with children who shares the raw, relatable ways she dug her way out of the trenches and back to the land of the living. There are many books about widowhood and grief. While helpful when the time is right, the shock and the aftermath of such a traumatic experience can make it difficult to find the time and motivation to read them while surviving the daily obstacles that zap your energy. Right now, the widow is too busy surviving funeral planning, endless calls and texts from family, tireless efforts to obtain the death certificate, meetings with social security, arrangements to be ironed-out with banks, mortgagors, and debts. Not to mention the practical things, like ensuring the children have been fed, arranging who will take them to school while you deal with the horrible details such as picking out his casket, or helping your children with things only you can help with? And then it hits her, “How will I even tell them that their father is dead? They don’t even know what ‘dead’ means!” Just thinking of the unending list of things to be done can leave the widow feeling smothered and breathless. Now is not the time for a novel; now is the time for a survival book, because right now, that’s what the widow is doing—surviving.
Unlike anything Joyce Carol Oates has written before, A Widow’s Story is the universally acclaimed author’s poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of Raymond Smith, her husband of forty-six years, and its wrenching, surprising aftermath. A recent recipient of National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, Oates, whose novels (Blonde, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Little Bird of Heaven, etc.) rank among the very finest in contemporary American fiction, offers an achingly personal story of love and loss. A Widow’s Story is a literary memoir on a par with The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and Calvin Trillin’s About Alice.
