Lost and Liking It

When I was 6 years old my family went to Expo 67 in Montreal.  I remember walking over a huge bridge in an enormous crowd of people when I reached up to hold my mother's hand. Grasping her hand, I then looked up at her face -- but it was a stranger's face, and I was holding a stranger's hand. Fear took hold of my entire being as I realized I was lost in a sea of people. I remember the sheer feeling of terror: ALONE IN A GREAT BIG WORLD!

Is this why I hate the idea of being lost to this day?

Except, I think I'm finally getting over it, at age 50, in part, I suppose, because my husband who also served the role of my navigator, is no longer here to take the wheel, read the maps, or guide me along the strange pathways I have to take if I want to keep exploring the world. You see, I love to explore but I've never felt comfortable not knowing just where I am--unless I'm with someone who has greater competence and comfort than me when in strange and unfamiliar places. So what to do when I am the captain of a ship with two children as my passengers and I am committed to showing them, and myself, the world?

Well, first step for me was to get a GPS. I did that a few years ago. And despite the scorn I felt emanating off some of my dearest relations, I knew it would open up passageways for me, ones that would otherwise be blocked by my own fear. Tools! Use them. Everyone doesn't know what you need. GPS saved my scared little travellin' soul. It also allowed me to embark on a 2000 mile road trip with my kids a few years back when my widowhood was new. Liberating. GPS freed me from the irrational fear that I could somehow be lost, and never find my way back.

This year for Spring Break, we headed off on another road trip, same GPS. Me: a little different. At first, just before we left, I felt just slightly down, a little low, a bit sad. Road trips were supposed to be with my husband. Mother, father, two kids. To me, travelling with the hubby and kids is one of the great perks of marriage, especially when your kids become great travel mates who don't wear diapers or go to bed early. So just before we set off, I was feeling a little sorry for my single parent self.

But then, the road beckoned, the GPS (I call her Garmeen) spoke her sweet words to me, Adele sang to us from the CD player as we sang along, and I realized that I don't care nearly as much if I get lost anymore. In fact, I think there may even be a new part of myself yearning to be lost, to not know, to explore a few trails with destinations unknown and untried.

Even my daughter noticed a difference in me when even the GPS kept leading us the wrong way in a city we'd never before visited. "Mom," she said, "You didn't seem to mind this time when we didn't know where we were going. You were laughing and relaxed."

New parts found, old parts lost. I want to go where I've never been.

Laugh about Death (Ha Ha Ha)

Grieving is heavy. Ugh. It's such a load on your back. It's all depressing and sad; it makes people want to turn away from you, change the subject, have a drink or drive really fast or eat too much or too little food just to get away from the heaviness of it all. (Ha ha ha!)

The sadness of grief can last a long time, longer than anyone wants to know. When you've lost someone integral to your daily life, especially: a spouse, a child, a sibling, a parent. Maybe you feel like you've got no right to be happy when someone that close to you can't be happy anymore, can't be anything anymore, has to be dead. Perhaps pure joy, silliness, levity, excitement, enthusiasm for your own vital future feels a tad wrong or out of place. (Ho! Ho! Ho!)

Grief changes you. It sucks the lightness from your life and hovers over you like a giant shadow, arms outstretched, threatening, looming, staying put. The shadow can block out the sun; with no sun there is no growth. (Tee hee!)

Major loss keeps rapping on your skull: hello in there, guess what, shit happens! It can happen to you -- again, so beware, don't trust and don't get too comfortable. (Hardy-har-har!)

Last night I had a great experience at Willow House in suburban Chicago www.willowhouse.org, where once a month I go to help facilitate grief groups for children and their families. Usually, a mother or father has died too young leaving young children and a spouse behind to carry on without them. The theme for last night's group was laughter, a wonderful theme, a fantastic departure from the weightiness of death, for people needing support as they heal and move forward past that heavy, heavy load of loss.

The evening was filled with exercises and activities that either had participants literally laugh together (on demand about absolutely nothing in particular), then share happy or silly memories of the loved one who had died. Oh! What a relief to laugh about death and to revive happy times! The energy last night was life-affirming and joyful. I couldn't help but think that the dead mothers and fathers would be grateful for their children having a good guffaw in their permanent absence, and that they would wish for more and more of these moments for their children, and their spouses as well. They would want their children to remember them in their funny moments and happy times, and not for messes left behind or scary moments of crisis. Being dead, they must be thinking...geez, get happy, you're not the one who died. LIVE WHILE YOU CAN!

So lighten up folks. Have a laugh thinking about the one who died. Let the funny and the happy push away that big old ghostly cloud. Put a smile on it. It's not that serious. It's just death and it ain't going away in your lifetime. Laugh about death for a change. Do it frequently. (Snicker.)

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Now's the time to get out your journal (what do you mean you don't have one?) OK then get out a piece of paper or since you're on the computer now, open up a new WORD file, and write for a full ten minutes. Here are a few prompts for you to use...use one or use them all, or make up your own.  It better be funny.

Remember five different occasions when your loved one made you laugh and write about it.

Describe some of the ridiculous habits of your loved one.

What did you and your loved one do for fun? When did you have the most fun?

Describe an amazing adventure or vacation you had with your loved one.

What kinds of gestures, gifts, or surprises did your loved one give you or do for you that made you feel loved and important.

Funny, but the idea of No Closure has given me some closure.

They've had a rather stunning effect on me, those words I heard on the radio when Nancy Berns was discussing her book called, Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us.

The words bear repeating because I think they are incredibly wise. It's just taken slow me a long time to get it: You don't need closure to heal. You don't need closure to heal. You don't need closure to heal.

These words have given me an enormous sense of peace and permission to enjoy my life, feel happy and content, AND to hold on to the vast and unending sadness that is the loss of my husband Ken. Adults who have lost something really big and important in an untimely fashion, like a husband in mid-life, for example, become re-made; the structure of their life disintegrates, the expected shape rearranges,  and slowly they rebuild. What comes gushing out of the pipes of security, safety, control, and certainty, trickles over time into a pool of perspective, peace, gratitude and acceptance. It sits there shimmering. You can soak in it. It can really be quite lovely. Until you start thinking about how you got there...how everything had to be destroyed before you finally let yourself swim.

But, it's OK. I lost my husband. I can't believe it happened to me, but it did. I can't believe I'm a single mother in a great big world doing all this on my own. It's simply horrible that he's not here, particularly for our children. I've grown so much. I've learned so much. The most important thing I've learned in the last few weeks: You don't need closure to heal.

It's like a mantra to me, and I wonder if it stirs others who struggle with the complex and contradictory feelings of hope, sadness, guilt and renewal that arise when one is ready to move on from active grieving. Here's how those words make me feel:

It's like after the structure of my life tumbled down and then amidst all that chaos the rebuilding had to begin immediately, if not slowly, and then finally, finally, that huge amount of dust that got stirred up and landed on every available surface, settled. Oh, once it settles, it's so much easier to breathe. There's more work, there's more clean-up, there always will be. Everything just looks better. Thanks Nancy.

You Don't Need Closure to Heal

A widow friend of mine recently mentioned a new book about grief (which I haven't yet read) called Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us by Nancy Berns. The author was speaking on NPR recently and her final words were: You Don't Need Closure to Heal.

How I love these words!  You Don't Need Closure to Heal. These words explain so much to me. They explain why I sometimes doubt my contentment when I can still shake my head in disbelief that Ken actually died. They explain why I can still become sad in the fall, the time when Ken began his decline to death, when hope and dread and stress swirled around me and all of our family.

You Don't Need Closure to Heal. These words help free me from guilty feelings of leaving Ken behind to live my own time-limited life. They help me understand why today I am a stronger, better person with a surer sense of right living -- even though I owe so much to the man who isn't here to reap the benefits of my improved self.

These six words give me permission to feel happy, to grow, to enjoy life and to honor and respect what I've lost with a gentle bow of reverence.

And for all the people who I imagine might think: your husband died in 2006 so get over it -- now I have six words for you: You Don't Need Closure to Heal.

I hope the rest of the book matches the wisdom of those six words. To hear the author, Nancy Berns, a sociology professor at Drake University, talk about the concept of closure, copy and paste this link to your browser: http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2011/10/17/closure-the-rush-to-end-grief-and-what-it-costs-us/

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Take a few minutes to respond in writing to those six words: You Don't Need Closure To Heal. What do they mean to you, right now? And by the way, do you have a journal for writing down your thoughts about grief? If not, try it. It's just one tool for finding your way back to life.

When Grief Fades

When my husband died almost six years ago:

I could not imagine how I could possibly ever be happy again.
I felt like a loser.
I felt extremely unlucky.
I was scared, anxious, worried, sad, confused.
I felt out of place and out-of-sync with others.
I felt desperate to recapture my old life --and this, an impossible task.
I felt alone in the world. 

Six years later, I find that grief has FINALLY taken the back seat to living. Here's what it feels like at the beginning of this new phase of life after major loss:

I feel so much more aware of how lucky I am to be alive.
I am far less likely to get aggravated or stressed out about daily living.
I am more appreciative and less critical of my own performance and contributions.
Surprisingly, I have become a more hopeful and positive person, despite my incredible back luck!
I have more faith that I am living my truth -- liking what I like--doing what I am supposed to be doing.
I am more open to the unknown and less attached to control.
Sometimes I still feel alone in the world, but, as when I was a much younger woman, I enjoy my own company.

And, yes, if I am going to reveal all the feelings that surround the idea of "grief fading", there is also some guilt, some sadness, and some concern: guilt that I am still alive and he is not, sadness to move forward into a territory where the loss of my incredible husband no longer dominates my world, and concern for how I can continue to honor him and keep his memory alive.

How To Love a Dead Husband, Five Years Gone

The purpose of this blog, The Heartbreak Diary, is to encourage people to write about their loss as a part of their recovery plan. Today's exercise asks you to create a brief, bullet-point list of how to love your dead spouse. Depending on your own unique circumstances, the lists will differ from person to person. I'd love to see your list! So quick...without too much thinking...give me fifteen ways to love the one who died.

Here's mine:

1. Think about him often.

2. Tell stories about him to anyone, even strangers.

3. See him in your children and then tell the children what you see.

4. Learn from your relationship, and even if it was an excellent one, as ours was, pledge to do even better the next time, if you're lucky enough to have a next time.

5. Really live your life and try to leave behind self-doubt, guilt, anxiety and fear. Live for him. Live for the life he had cut short. Live in honor of him. Live as well as you can so that you can teach his children that life is great (even when you lose big.)

6. Laugh alot.

7. Honor your good health, mental and physical. Don't take your sound body and mind for granted. Exercise your body, your mind, and your emotions. (One way to exercise your emotions is to write about them.)

8. Remember how he loved you and love yourself that way.

9. Write about him.

10. Listen to music he loved. Read books he loved. Do activities he loved.

11. Honor his values.

12. Love his parents and siblings and other relatives.

13. Try to get something positive out of a loss this huge. Try to live a better life.

14. Love life.

15. Remember your love and let it guide you to better days.

I Think I'm Done Grieving...But I'm Afraid to Say It

Is it OK to say this? I think I'm done grieving the loss of my husband.

Oh boy. I'm not sure about this. Just writing the words makes me feel uneasy.

It's been five years since Ken died. In these five years I have dwelled upon his death, worked hard to understand its effect on me and on my children, gone to hours of therapy, attended grief groups, written extensively about Ken, cancer, death and widowhood, renewed my self and spirit through friendship, yoga and exercise, felt sorry for myself, experienced deep pain, sadness and loneliness, and adapted to life as a single woman and single parent. I used dating as a strategy to push away the pain of losing my husband only to find that in being rudely dumped by one guy I finally got it: my wonderful husband was actually gone and never coming back; there would be no repeat of the incredible piece of good fortune that was our meeting and our marriage. (It took about three and a half years to REALLY get that my terrific marriage was over, Ken was gone, and my life had to essentially restart in foreign territory.)

I once read that it takes a "significant life event" to make profound change occur once you've reached adulthood. Well, Ken's death was that event and I am now changed forever. I feel like a different person, a better person, a more content person, a more sober person. The contentment comes, ironically, from truly understanding that one day I will die and this wonderful life and all it holds will be gone. And so, I cherish it more and worry a whole lot less. I am not the same Jill I was before. I have lost a great deal. And yet, I think that I am through grieving. For now, that is. Because my "significant life event" has taught me that there is life on the one hand and loss on the other. Those hands are clasped together. You can't live without loss, you can only decide how to live well despite it.

Yet, I feel bad thinking that I'm done with grief, like I'm not supposed to ever be done. It's a fix I'm in. If I were still mourning Ken's loss and living in the middle of grief 20 years after his death certainly I would be stuck...I wouldn't have successfully managed to accept his death and to go on with my own life. But to believe that I have reached a place where I am no longer grieving? What does that mean?

Here's what it means to me:

I have accepted Ken's death and made a decision to live as well and as joyfully as I can anyway.

I can now think about Ken with primary emotions other than just despair or sadness or hopelessness or guilt or regret. Mingled in there now in equal measure are happiness, contentment, gratitude, joy, peace, and strength.

It will always be painful that Ken died. There will continue to be many moments that make me cry for the infinite absence, the hole, the lost future, the what-could-have-beens.

When someone dies, a common refrain the widow hears goes as follows: "Your memories will sustain you" or "He'll live on in your thoughts." I once wrote soon after Ken died that the thought of living on memories is like driving on fumes. But today, five years later, I'm starting to understand what it means to be sustained by memory. I will turn 50 years old this year. More than half my life is past. There is so much precious material to be mined in those years now gone. I can see that now.

Once again, I can see a future that excites me instead of one that feels hostile, unknown and foreign. When Ken was sick and I feared he would die and leave me alone, I was filled with fear and dread so severe I couldn't live with it without turning to medication. After he died, my world felt as though it had crumbled. I actually had a dream in which the floor of my kitchen developed an enormous crater in the middle of it -- my foundation was disintegrating.

I have rebuilt in these five years a completely different structure that may have more doors and windows. I feel more open to possibility, more willing to embrace change, more able to be just who I am without apologizing for myself, more inclined to see what's out in the world, even if it's unexpected. Loss has informed me: there is no one way to safety. There isn't safety. There's just experience, good, bad, neutral. When you live, when you're not dead, what you get is to experience. I compare myself to Ken who can't experience anything anymore: not love, not loss, not pain, not pleasure. I'd rather be alive to take it all on.

Yes, I think I'm done grieving for now. I never thought I'd get here. It was the hardest work I've ever done, but I'm glad I did it. I gave it my all.

There, I said it.

Stopping in Peace

Going through a major traumatic event is exhausting. Losing someone you love is devastating. I find that almost five years after my husband's death, I avoid stress wherever I can. Contentment matters more to me than ever before. It feels essential to my well-being. I might as well be a hippie carrying a multi-colored sign that reads: PEACE + LOVE cause that's all I want anymore.



I am not ready to stop
Being content, to change.
I will not give up my peace.
After years of spinning,
Reaching for light,
Returning to darkness,
With every revolution,
Lightheaded yet grounded,
Tied to the wheel
As it turned us over and over.
We became thinner, more fragile.
I trusted the inner ear
To maintain balance, to know up from down.
This spinning can't go on endlessly.
Eventually slowed to an absolute
Halt. Where I find myself now:
A still, calm, silent rock on the ground.
Flung from the heavy wheel
Sprouting shoots, tendrils, soft moss
Fingers, arms, muscles, fists, hands
Held to the sun
Which has never, ever felt as warm
On this cold surface
Heating up. Transforming. Growing subversively.
No longer empty, barren.
I am not ready to change,
Ideally suited to my current environment.
No more spinning, please not yet.

Restoration

Why is it that just as I have acknowledged, felt, reached a new sense of contentment in my life -- a contentment I have found within myself, ALL ALONE, while planting peas in my garden, or successfully completing a home renovation project, or writing, or not being concerned about whether or not I stay at home on a Saturday night or a Friday night, or a Sunday night,

Why, just as I feel this sweet peace of a contentment with less, with all that I do have, I am then plunged into a deep well of sorrow, a sorrow that skims the cream of my contentment and sits there floating across everything? At any moment, the spark of Ken's premature death can take the picture of my peaceful, quiet forest of solitude and start a little fire raging at the edge of it, curling the corners until it's all just nothing but grey ash and emptiness all over again.

This week I went to Ukrainian village to visit the grand, three story, 1890 redstone apartment building that you bought about 100 years after it was built, about three years before we met, a courageous, urban-pioneering moment in your life as a single, social worker in his 30s. Little did you know that the risk you took back then would become a key foundation of support for your young family living alone without you.

Now I dream of restoring it, piece by piece, this building that has come to sit in a relatively new historic district of Chicago owned now by me who never would have taken the risk that you did. There is peeling paint on crumbling stone, rickety steps in need of replacement, soft brick in need of tuckpointing so the moisture cannot do its damage. I can restore and build upon your dream. I can take something in danger of becoming run down and renew it. You started this. I can keep it moving forward. I am growing stronger though I can still cave in from the devastation of your disappearance.

You were so proud of the building you bought and you loved watching the neighborhood transform around you from dangerous to impossibly hip. Today young people live in the building just like we did....they meet, they move in together, eventually some of them marry. Today I went over to the building to meet with a tree trimmer named Sy. He's going to remove a dead maple tree and trim the dawn redwood that you planted about 20 years ago, and the locust tree that has become simply huge. After Sy left, I met with a young woman who will become a new tenant in May. She's about to begin her job as a medical resident at Rush, and she's moving in with her boyfriend for the first time. She told me they're talking about a ring.

A dead tree will come down. A young woman will begin her career and a new love right here in our building where we were married. I'm thinking renewal. Tomorrow I'm meeting with an architect who knows the area, knows our building, and appreciates restoration work.

I never imagined I'd be doing any of this. Like our building, I've been worn down by what life has rained upon me. But I'm coming back. I'm taking the building with me. We're going to get better. I wish I believed you could see me now. But when I asked you if I should work on restoring the building, I told myself that you said, "go for it."

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Take 5 minutes and write about restoration. Or if you'd rather, write about what's been destroyed.

I Can Get Some Satisfaction

Ken taught me a lot about satisfaction, in so many ways, many of them I am realizing now, while I couldn't while he lived. Nice, right? It took the death of my most excellent husband to teach me something about true satisfaction.

While he was alive, by my side, I didn't need to care so much about satisfaction. He had enough for both of us and everyone around him. I was "content" to be the one who always wondered if I was meeting my potential, doing enough, accomplishing enough. I was often filled with doubt about my purpose. I flustered easily, got excited about what was happening around me. Sometimes the excitement was positive and vibrant, sometimes it was just nervous, scattered, wasted energy. I was always scanning the horizon for the next event, opportunity, crisis. I was alert, ready, prepared, on the lookout for potential trouble. My to-do list bossed me around. I was on time. Not late. Punctual. On deadline. I was seeking the next moment instead of enjoying the one that was before me. Trying to be perfect, and failing perfectly at that.

Ken's stillness, his calm was always present for me. All he had to do was put his hand on mine and I'd get that transfer of warm, steady, calm energy. No matter what he was doing, the task was right. On the phone for an hour with Apple Computer? Why not. Has to be done. Balancing the Quicken account? Deeply satisfying. After all, it's a life task that needs doing. Children fussy for hours on end? Why not? That's what children do sometimes and that's why parents are there, to absorb and deflect. He was like a worry stone for me...make a connection with him and my blood pressure would plummet, heart rate decrease, perspective widen.

Ken lived in his own time zone, a mysterious, calm, cool, rock of assuredness and understanding. In Ken's world, all was as it should be. Things were meant to be understood, not judged. He could get an angry note from his boss ALL IN CAPS and shrug his shoulders. He could run late without sweating. At his memorial service, a friend told a story of sailing on Lake Michigan with Ken in a sudden squall. One of the passengers fell off the boat and as the distance grew between them, Ken surveying the surroundings said, "Wow, it's really windy out here," while turning the boat to retrieve her.

Today I'm the one in the water. Ken is gone, years now. Fortunately, at the moment, I'm not in cold, windy Lake Michigan. I'm alone in a warm Caribbean sea, all by myself, floating way out from the beach. No one knows I'm here but me. The water is clear and body temperature. I want to share this peace the way Ken shared his with me. But it's quiet out here and I'm all by myself. I can't see anyone. I splash every now and again enjoying how it feels and sounds. I'm sending out ripples.

Recovery. Renewal. Reinvention.

I have just begun Year 5 of Life As a Widow. Year 4 brought some amazing revelations that included:

I Will Never Again Have the Life I Once Had with My Husband!

Life as I Knew It, Liked It, and Expected it To Be is Officially Over!

Rebuilding Life at Mid-Life Isn't Easy!

You might think that four years is a very long time to figure out all this, to get it, to embrace the reality of one's existence, but if you do, chances are you've never lost your spouse. In my experience, the pain of losing my husband when I was 44 years old was so great and so traumatic that I've had to hide the truth from myself, and then occasionally let it be revealed one little piece at a time.

Try this writing exercise (my responses are included in solidarity with my fellow widow friends):

After ___ years of living with grief, I finally understand that:

I still want to enjoy my life anyway, even without Ken.

I am made happier by much smaller things than before I lost my spouse.

There is still much to do and much to see.

Being creative makes me happy.

Even though I had a relatively short marriage, it was a wonderful marriage.

Most things aren't worth too much worry or stress.

I am still a lucky person.

I can deal with being on my own.

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Suddenly, as year 5 begins, I'm ready for something altogether new and different because you know what? Grief is hard work, grief is all-consuming, grief is a big drag. I'm tired of grieving. It's no wonder that some people just skip grieving completely and head immediately to the bottle, a brand new spouse, or their own life-threatening illness.

But me? I've put in my time and my work on this one. Recovering from grief has been my part-time job.

The tasks during different stages of my job have included: psychotherapy, grief support groups, writing, yoga, running, pilates, self-pity, meditation, excessive dwelling on finding a man, redecorating, renovating, making new friends, and even needlepoint. The great thing about taking on recovery from grief as a part-time job is that you get to design the job to your own specifications! No one can tell you how to recover. No one is qualified to evaluate your job performance. (They may try, however.)

Here's how some of the tasks I've undertaken as I've worked on recovering from my loss have helped me, lest you are interested in trying any of these for yourself:

Psychotherapy: Ok, I'm a big believer in this one; after all, my very own dead husband was a therapist. My therapist helped me understand that what I had been through was HUGE and that attempting to minimize my loss was not going to make it go away. She gave me respect for all I had been through and for the hard work involved in recovering from grief.

Grief Support Groups: I'm quite a social person so I found that listening to others talk about their losses made me feel less alone. I don't like to feel like I'm the saddest sack in town, so knowing that others are sad too, and working it through, gave me hope and stirred my empathic feelings for others.

Writing: I could not have survived my emotional pain without writing it down. In fact, writing is so helpful to me that I can't imagine suffering without having writing to turn to. If you feel emotions strongly, I highly recommend writing them down. For me, painful emotions lose some of their grip after being expressed on paper. As I've mentioned before, solid research has shown beyond a doubt that writing about your feelings is good for your emotional and physical health.

Yoga: I have now been practicing Kundalini Yoga for the last full year. I will admit that this form of yoga, which includes meditating, chanting, and singing, is not for everyone. It makes me feel great while toning muscle. I feel much happier and more settled in my life.

Running: Since Ken's death, I've taken up running just a little bit. I have run three 5K races in the last three years. This is not something I ever thought of doing. It's just nice to know I can.

Pilates: Strengthen your core and you just feel stronger all over. Pilates made me feel so good that it made me highly motivated to improve my strength in other areas of body and mind. My friend who so graciously invited me to experience Pilates has helped me recover more than she can ever know.

Self-pity: If you can lose your spouse and never feel sorry for yourself, you're a better, stronger, person than me. Or perhaps you're not a person at all. In fact, you might be a robot. Anyone who loses their spouse, gets to feel sorry for themselves once in a while. This might lead to whining, complaining, shopping, or being a big, dependent baby. Go for it. Once in a while.

Meditation: I find meditation to be an invaluable skill. You may not want to take it up as a daily habit, but learn something about it. It can calm you down fast. It clears your mind. It puts you in touch with your essential truth.

Excessive dwelling on finding a man: This was a part of my job that I would not recommend to others. We all take an erroneous path every now and then. For those of us in grief, it can be easy to imagine that there might be a fast path to recovery. At least I didn't choose heroin.

Redecorating and renovating: This is a good visual representation of the change you are going through after loss. I highly recommend changing your environment to suit your mood and brighten your surrounding. Every time I walk up my new walkway, or my new carpeted stairs, or gaze at my newly exposed brick, I feel good.

Making New Friends: Nothing and noone lasts forever. I think that the ability to keep on making new friends as you move through life is invaluable. People come and go. People die. But there are always good people around. Find the ones who make you feel good. Avoid the ones who don't. Keep reaching out.

Needlepoint: I joke that in taking up needlepoint I have succumbed to widowhood. But, the fact is, I find it really relaxing. I just hung my first piece of finished work on the wall. My son picked out the canvas for me when he was 7 years old. Now I'm working on one that my daughter picked out. Recently, I started taking a class to learn more stitches. Most of the women in it (but not all) are about 30 years older than me. I bet some of them are widows like me. They make me laugh.