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...
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 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...
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 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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...