Category: Blog

Tips to Help a Widow

trishLeave a comment on Tips to Help a Widow

I mentioned a couple weekends ago I had attended a widows retreat sponsored by Starlight Ministries.  One of the speakers was author Miriam Neff, a widow herself.  Her ministry www.widowconnection.com. is committed to “helping widows in time of need.”  Her website is full of helpful articles and stories.  I would like to share one such article I found especially helpful for those of you who wonder how to help us widows.

7 Tips to Help a Widow by Miriam Neff:

  1.  Please do stay connected.  There is already a huge hole in our universe.  Do not assume we need ‘space’ to grieve.
  2. Please do say you are sorry for our lose.  We would rather you tell us you do not know what to say than to tell us your story of loosing your friend or even close relative.  We may be able to listen to your story later, but not now.  Do not tell us you understand.
  3. Do call and ask specifically, “Can we go for a walk together?  May I run errands for you?  Meet you for coffee?”  Don’t say, “Call me if you need anything.”
  4. Do refer to our husband’s acts or words – serious or humorous.  Do not leave our husbands out of the conversation.
  5. Invite us to anything.  We may decline but will appreciate being asked.  Do not assume we no longer want to participate in couple events.  ( I would add, do not make decisions for us.  Let us decide if we want to attend a function or not.)
  6. Do accept that we are where we are.  Marriages are brief, long, healthy, dysfunctional, intense, remote.  Death comes suddenly or in tiny increments over years.  Again our experiences are so different, as we are.  So is our journey through grief.  Do not assume we go through the outlined grief process ‘by the book.’
  7. Walk the talk.  Do not make ‘conversation only’ offers.  “We’ll call you and will go out for dinner.” – and then not follow up.  Yes, we are sensitive in our grieving, but we’d rather hear you say, “I’ve been thinking about you”, than make a ‘conversation only’ offer.

Hopefully the above article is helpful.  In talking with my other widow friends, we all agree Miriam is right on!

I am also going to post this on my “Grief Tips” page.  It’s time I start developing this section.  So, stay tuned for more helpful posts from me and my other widow friends!

On the journey,

Trish

Renovations, More Than What I Expected

trishLeave a comment on Renovations, More Than What I Expected

Every day there are constant reminders that I am a widow.  I went to see my oncologist this week for my routine check up and had to update forms.  Are you single married divorced or widow?  Check the appropriate box.  Yuck.  On a side note, I got a clean bill of health!

Since my cancer in 2009 and then Neal’s diagnosis of cancer the following year we had let the maintanence of the house go by the wayside.  Neal and I didn’t have much oomph to maintain the house during our illnesses.  We were focused on other things:  treatments, sleep or lack of; getting to the many doctor appointments; living at the hospital; paying bills; and maintaining the dental practice.  Since Neal died I have been working on getting the inside painted and other maintanence items completed, taking one project at a time.  This summer the outside of the house needed some attention.  The back deck had some rotted boards, the house had some rotten boards from water and woodpeckers, the front steps were rotted and the landscaping was over-grown or dead.  That meant working with a contractor to redo the deck and repair the house, working with a painter to have the house painted, and working with a landscaper to redo the decking and stairs.  Projects like this can seem over whelming to those of us that are widows who aren’t used to going this alone, especially when the project turns out to be a lot bigger than expected.

Once my contractor started ripping off boards to the old deck, he discovered some surprises.  The boards had not been attached to the house properly with flashing.  As a result, the boards on the house were moldy and rotted.  Of course we caught it “just in time” as the boards could have allowed water and animals into the house.  Also, the support boards in one section had sagged and needed to be completely ripped out and new boards put in.

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Once the landscapers started ripping out the old stairs they discovered that the electrical going down the stairs was eroded and the wires were fried.  My house was a fire waiting to happen!  That meant an electrician had to come in and make sure everything was safe, take out the wiring for the stairs and rewire the light posts on the driveway.

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The outside work is almost finished but not without surprises, extra expenses and headaches.  It’s a sense of accomplishment that I did this on my own but at other times I feel angry that I am having to do this alone.

Part of back deck completed
Part of back deck completed

 

 

 

 

Last weekend, some of my widow friends and I went to a Widow’s Retreat put on by Starlight Ministries (www.starlightmin.org) at Gull Lake Ministries (www.gulllake.org).  There were widows of all ages there and widows as of two months ago on up.  What a sense of sisterhood.  We laughed and we cried.

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One of the sessions fellow widow Jolene DeHeer (www.jolenedeheer.com) shared a poignant message between the laughs and seriousness.   She took us to Psalm 13 where David is lamenting to the Lord, how long…?how come…?  He says to God in verse 5 “BUT I trust in your unfailing love.”  All kinds of things may be happening in my life and in your life.  BUT/ YET is a choice to continue to trust in God’s unfailing love.    Lamentation 3:20,21 says that “I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. YET I still dare to hope…”. Jolene challenged us to celebrate the “whatever.”  Don’t focus on the negative. Think about what is good (Philippians 4:8).  That gives birth to joy.  Notice I didn’t say happiness because true joy is not dependent on your circumstances.  It comes from believing and trusting in God.

Yep, I’m a widow.  Would I have chosen this? No.  But I do know that God loves me,  I trust that He is in control and will use these things in my life for His plans and purposes.  So, in the BUT/YET of my house I am choosing to celebrate that the wiring was caught before my house started on fire; there are no moldy rotten boards on my house to allow water or animals into the house; I don’t have to stain the back deck anymore; I now have an outdoor shower for after beach use; all the outside lights work now; the front stairs are sturdy; no splinters from the back deck; my landscaping looks fresh and healthy.

Whatever your circumstance will you choose to BUT/YET trust in God’s unfailing love for you?  Will you choose to celebrate the whatever good?  Sometimes it’s hard to find anything good but there is always something good to be found in the midst of the bad.

On the journey,

Trish