Widowhood

After years of dreading sunny days and silent weekends, our Guest Writer kindly shares how something has quietly shifted. In this gentle reflection, she describes how spring light, birdsong, and a moment in the garden revealed not just change but the beginnings of peace.

"Widows fog," also referred to as "Widow brain,". It is a term used by individuals to describe the mental difficulties or memory impairment they...

Marcia Cross, of Desperate Housewives fame, was 31 and in a five year relationship with actor Richard Jordan. When he died suddenly from a brain tumour she found grief hit her hard.

Alcohol & Grief: Losing a spouse is a difficult experience that can leave you feeling overwhelmed, sad, and helpless. In such times, some people...

Hi Handsome, How have you been. You must be so fed up with me talking to you ALL the time, so I figured another letter might be nice for a change. I hope the postman in your universe is more reliable than ours. A birthday card for you arrived yesterday. It got delivered to the wrong house (together with some pretty vital stuff) and it took more than 3 month to get here. I’d make that a speed of less than one centimetre a day. That is slow. Even for Ireland.

Mother’s Day can be a complicated time for families after a bereavement. Mother’s Day after bereavement often brings a mixture of emotions for children...

Several years ago the following letter was shared onto our forums. Nobody knows who the original author was or where it came from but what's certain, its one of the most read posts we have.

Last Will and Testament of a Lover – by Clifford Ellis I found this book in the first few weeks after my husband’s death when...

I have a story to tell. Perhaps it’s not really a story, but, rather, a little vignette from my life. It is a vignette that deals with reality, or truth, or perception, depending on the reader’s interpretation. Four months, one week, and two days ago my beautiful wife Catherine died, just short of our forty fifth wedding anniversary. It was a sudden and unexpected death. Although our children and I were inconsolable, I drew some small comfort from the fact that it was a very peaceful, painless and fear free passing from this life. But, it was only a small comfort.

When my husband was in ICU I would come home from the hospital feeling tired and wired up too. So, sleep was out of the question as my mind was wandering around the world and back. So much information and anxiety! The house was eerily silent compared to the whirr and click of the machines which were keeping my husband alive. Having decided to go to bed I switched on the TV to watch BBC and Sky News. After a few nights I realised that if I left the news programme on but decreased the volume then I would drift off into a peaceful enough sleep. I finally got into that sort of routine at night. Listening to news presenters was an ideal but weird kind of sleeping tablet. During the day I would drive into the hospital to meet the ICU teams and visit Dave. It was difficult to see him there in a coma and hooked up to machines. He was just a shell of a man or so I thought.