WELCOME TO WIDOWED WORLD

20 June 2009

Greetings

It‘s truly inspiring to see how the numbers of people finding our Widowed World website are increasingly rapidly week by week and that spurs us on to provide you with more and more information, support and encouragement.  It’s now quite a challenge for me to recall those early hours, days, months and years of widowhood but much of my experience can be found by reading the Editorial archives and other articles and as I’m in touch with many recently widowed people on a daily basis they remind me of how it was.  Some people, once past the early stages, quite understandably prefer not to cast their minds back and re-live challenging circumstances but because I feel so passionately about making information available, I’m continually inspired to seek new avenues of research and information.

Contacted recently via the website by a journalist, I’ve now spent some enjoyable times with her discussing the effects of widowhood for a programme to be broadcast on Radio 4 later this year (more details later). It’s good to see a growing awareness of this major life transition that affects so many of us and perhaps eventually; we will have a national support system that helps us be better prepared for it. At one time people wore a black ribbon armband as a mark of respect for someone who had died and I sometimes wonder if there should be a discreet badge widowed people could wear, if they chose, to alert others to their grief but also their need for communication with other similarly widowed people. The chosen logo on the badge would say it all and enable us to reach out to people in an empathic way.

This afternoon I’m chairing a meeting to make final arrangements for a nursing home garden party. The only thing we can’t plan is the weather but I’m hoping this present spell of lovely summer weather will hold out for a couple more weeks at least – please!

Never stop looking for silver linings,

Jacquie