Widow's Words of Hope

Book excerpt: "Grief. Loss. Alone. Widow. No matter how long a woman has been married or how her husband died, those four words are shocking, strange-sounding words that just do not seem to belong in her world. When my 50-year-old husband Wayne died after suffering for 12 weeks following bypass surgery and Staph infections, I was overwhelmed by those four words and what they represented. In those first few weeks of barely being able to breathe, of grief that overwhelmed me, of new fears and uncertainty, I found a ray of hope in the words of other widows. With over 11 million widows in the U.S. and approximately 700,000 women becoming widows every year (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005) I knew I was not alone, but why was I so lonely? I joined a grief support group and online widows' chat rooms that I turned to many times. One night after everyone had left and I had cried until I was physically sick, I logged on at 2 a.m. and put out this plea: "Tell me, tell me, please. How do you make it through the first few weeks?" From all over the country widows responded. Widow's Words of Hope is what they said. Host a Christ-centered 10-session support group based on Anne Robey-Graham's grace-full book Widow's Words of Hope and minister Christ's love to them now!