How do widows survive

I lived on the ocean so I could take in the salt air and listen to the sounds of the ever-changing sea. I furnished my apartment with orchids and spent time on my balcony looking down at the Koi fish swimming peacefully in a pond. Moving into my new surroundings was very healing. I surrounded myself with everything I loved.

Spending time alone was the key in my healing. I thought and thought. I truly grieved my loss. I was afraid. I thought about my fears.

I worried about my daughters facing life without a father. I was now both mom and dad! Should I stay in Honolulu or should I move to Chicago to be closer to my family? Questions and more questions whirled through my mind. After several months of indecision and a lot of soul searching I began to live into my answers and made realistic decisions. This process took one year of my life.

So please don't rush the healing process. On the one-year anniversary of Michael's death I stood up for the Rabbi's final prayer between my 2 daughters. I remember my girls were holding my hands. A year of tears poured out of my eyes and flowed over my face.

At the end of the service I knew I accepted my loss. Do something GOOD today! Allow yourself to mourn the loss of a loved one, and make sure to support those around you who are mourning! Let's all take a minute to remember our lost loved ones today, darlings! News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline.

HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Your life is forever changed and so is your outlook. In the big picture, these things become miniscule. Expect to ask yourself questions that have no answers. What if? Why me? Why couldn't I have died first?

Expect to cancel them, because you realize there is no place to run away to. Expect to wish for a giant eraser to erase away all the pain. Expect the pain to never end. It won't. But in time you will learn how to manage it. I promise. Expect to not eat.

In the beginning you won't be able to enjoy food. But it is important to drink plenty of fluids. If nothing else, drink water to keep your kidneys flush. Expect to not be in the mood for all the things you once were in the mood for. This writer didn't want to eat chocolate! Expect the sun to come out tomorrow, the daffodils to sprout in spring, every bird on the planet to sing, every oak, elm, and cottonwood to shed its leaves in autumn, the moon to glow, the stars to twinkle, the earth to spin on its axis, and then to wonder why.

Expect no one to understand. Though they say, "I understand. They don't. They never will. Not even another widow. Grief is personal. It's just like a thumb print, no two alike. Expect to make mistakes. That's it. And now I know what you're thinking — She's listed more than ten things.

But to make it through your grief, it's important to realize you are not alone. What you are feeling is normal. It makes people develop new skills and abilities they may not have considered before the event occurred. It was then that she sought advice on how to cope, and she published her findings in an article for Daily Mail. In the piece, Robinson explained that thinking about the ways in which she would be reminded of her late husband or see him again in the afterlife helped her cope.

An important part of being a widow is not getting too upset when someone briefly forgets about the person you lost. Carole Brody Fleet, a speaker and award-winning author, wrote an article for The Huffington Post that explained how often families and friends will forget about the loved one you lost and not be there to help you cope. One way to survive widowhood, according to one blogger , is to join a widow network. Some of these networks include WidowNet, which offers resources and information for widows, and The American Widow Project , a social media network for widows.

Young widows even have their own social networking site. The American Association of Individual Investors offers advice to widows on improving their financial situations once their loved one passes away. In this chart , the AAII explains what payments will need to be made in the short term for a new widow and what things will need to be figured out in the long run, too.

Some of the short-term fixes include paying for a funeral, checking on medical insurance and settling the estate of the late spouse. For the long-term, widows should look at organizing financial information, finding a financial adviser and creating a new retirement plan. A new study found that widows tend to get through chronic or physical pain better than those who are married, according to Time magazine. In large part this is because widows have to go through emotional pain for an extended period of time, and are used to enduring the feeling more than a married couple might be, Francine Russo wrote for Time.

This pushes the widow to accept the pain as her own, and not rely on others to remedy the situation. Taking care of your wellness is an important part of being a widow.

According to the University of Texas , weight loss is more harmful to widows than newly married couples because it may start an ongoing weight loss trend. Part of this is connected to how widows may be elderly, and weight loss for the elderly can sometimes be fatal, the study found. It is possible to love again. Being with someone new can help people cope and learn to rebuild relationships, Ben-Zeev wrote, which is crucial for widows to move on from the person they lost.

But Barbara Brabec, a relationship expert, wrote on her blog that widows should learn to laugh the pain away and embrace the emotions that come.