health and well being/social concerns/self help/widows
WIDOWING
A Guide to Another Life
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Widowing:
A Guide to Another Life
by Nancy H. Payne
Audenreed Press
A Division of Biddle Publishing Company
"A guide to another life" takes up where flowers and sympathy cards leave off, and offers continuous support for widows and widowers who struggle to cope with the loss of a spouse. Written with indispensable widow to widow empathy and warmth, this book is a guided tour toward normal living. Widowing is an upbeat guide back to normal living after the death of a spouse, based on the experiences of many women. The commonality of their problems is encouraging at a time when one feels unsettled, unsure and even frightened.
What began as a letter to a friend grew into this book, at the urging of many readers to whom it had made a real difference. Short, but packed with ideas and encouragement, it still has the quality of that friendly letter. Everyday answers for everyday women, from one sharing what she had learned from her own WIDOWING.
ISBN: 1-879418-78-9
©1997
$6.95 US
Softcover 53 Pages
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ENDORSEMENTS
"The book shows wisdom and insight, but is eminently practical,
down to earth, full of common sense ideas and encouragement. It is
delivered with humor and a light touch. It is presented to you
with love from those women who have made the trip before you."
Forecaster
"When my husband died, friends and family showered me with book-sized books, psychological tomes, and pamphlets. Then one friend passed along Nancy's WIDOWING. Of all the words I read, hers were the only help. I no longer felt alone."
Mrs. Charles (Mary) Rockwood
"Take a large dollop of common sense, a generous measure of hope and promise, a sprinkling of humor, and you have a recipe called WIDOWING from the warm heart of someone who has been there."
Mrs. Jack (Charlotte) Spencer
EXCERPT
You may have been trained to always display a stiff upper lip, to insist on independence and to turn only to the privacy of the church or counselors for comfort. But do you want to deprive your family and friends of their best way to mourn, which is to serve you? If you let down that drawbridge over your moat of self-sufficiency and allow that love to pour across, you will be taking a big step forward.
Learn to share your thoughts and feelings at appropriate times. Admit your emotional needs. don't cheat those close to you or yourself. My mother took her suffering to her God and His priests, keeping me "off limits" to "spare me." Wrong.
You don't have to admit every time you angrily bang the wall with your fist as you go upstair to the empty bed, or each time you pull off the road so blinded with tears you can't see to drive. But your new candid and intimate sharing will encourage and stimulate that of friends, and old relationships will grow wondrously deeper in value and closeness. I was amazed to discover what a very private and lonely person I had been in comparison to what I became.
If you have children and you open up to them in this way they see you less as the "Institution of Mother" and more as a quite vulnerable and searching individual. They become aware of the role their father played in your private life and begin to understand a little of what you are missing so much.