Author Alexandra Stacey Invites You on A Road To Joy
As a widowed mother of five teenagers, Canadian writer Alexandra Stacey was struggling with grief, anger, and fear. Learning to navigate her way back into the world of the living...
A Vision for DragonflyYOU
As I’ve been going gangbusters creating content for DragonflyYou, something odd has been happening. I’ve been trying to build a foundation of solid, helpful, and supportive information and advice for...
Widows Need Time and Space to Be Alone
Widows need support. They need to know we care. That we're here for them. Right? Well, no. Not quite. If you have these wonderfully big-hearted compassionate loved ones in your...
How Widows Can Manage the Pain of Grief
Grief hurts far more than we expect it to. None of us are prepared for how much the death of a spouse hurts. We expect to be sad. We expect...
Grief Is Not Something to Be Cured
Grief is a Human Condition - not a medical one. Grief is something you 'get over.' Grief is something you have to heal from. Grief is something you must overcome....
The Last Thing I Said to Him Before He Died
Or, how to beat yourself up with guilt. I rode in the front of the ambulance to Emergency that day. Holding his jacket and the one shoe I'd found on...
5 Stages of Grief Do Not Apply to the Widowed
More than a half century after this ground-breaking take on death and dying shone a new light on the medical profession's obsession with saving lives, the world seems to have...
How to Make Widowhood a Tiny Bit Less Lonely
One of the first things a widow will struggle with is loneliness. Depending on our individual circumstances, the lonely can come and go, and will hit us with everything from...
Other People Die, Too
Today marks one year since my mom passed away. I miss her terribly. Despite the stress and struggles her last years demanded of me. Despite the suffering she endured, strong...
Letting Go of Grief Doesn’t Mean Forgetting
Of course losing a spouse is a tremendous loss. Nobody can argue that. But after having lost so much, there comes a time when we realize we're starting to lose...
It’s Okay to Love Again
Moving forward through widowhood can be infinitely harder than it has to be - as if it isn't hard enough already - when we discover that we have, or want...
When Is It Okay to Date Again
Of all the conversations a widow will have, this one is probably the most provocative. For the widow, and for whomever she's talking to. Everybody has an opinion. And that's...
New Widow Decisions Aren’t Usually Good Ones
Many of us fall into widowhood with an intense need to fix everything. In a desperate attempt to get life back to 'normal' as quickly as possible, we start rearranging...
Finding New People After the Death of a Spouse
It happens more than anyone likes to admit. When we lose a spouse to death, within a few weeks/months, we realize that we've lost all of their people, too. Friends...
Losing a Spouse, and Then Losing the People
After speaking to hundreds of widows over the years, it seems there's a little known phenomenon that surprises a great many of us shortly after losing our loved one. In...
Nobody Knows What to Say to a Widow
It is astounding at times to hear the wondrous variety of crazy things people say to a widow when they don’t know what to say. Standing in the receiving line...
Widowhood is the #1 Stressor
The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale lists death of a spouse as the highest adult stressor we face in life. The list includes life events such as divorce, incarceration, retirement, and forty...