WELCOME TO WIDOWED WORLD

20 October 2008

Greetings

Talking to my very dear eighty year old and long since widowed cousin today I remarked that since becoming widowed myself, I feel my personality has hardened, a metamorphosis not altogether pleasing.  Her very wise and intuitive reply was “Of course you have. You’ve lost your knight in shining armour and now have to metaphorically grow into your own suit of armour to cope with all the things he would have done to protect and support you.” Such an interesting concept and I wonder if there is a parallel for widowed men!

With Halloween and bonfire night yet to come, many of us will now be projecting our thoughts to Christmas and wondering how to manage it this year.  Planning ahead rather than letting the occasion creep up on us will help greatly, and easing into it gently also helps to lessen the significant absence of our partner. Introduced very successfully last year by Elizabeth, one of our former club facilitators, yesterday we took over the local village hall, inviting club members and villagers to join us in the putting together of Christmas Shoe Boxes for poor families in Romania, Albania and the Republic of Moldova.  A delightful young Romanian woman working here brought her guitar and sang Romanian Christmas Carols whilst we cheerfully cut wrapping paper, decorated the shoe boxes, packed and parcelled until there were a total of twenty five boxes ready to be transported by road and distributed for Christmas Day. It was humbling to realise the value of a bar of soap, a deodorant, shampoo, toothbrushes or toothpaste in countries where people have so very little and may not even have ready access to running water. We took great joy in making sure there was “Something for Mama, something for Papa and something for the children,” (Elizabeth’s words) and perhaps even for grandparents, some of whom might well be widowed

Many people who participated in the shoe box event said how much it had helped then prepare for their own Christmas by focusing attention on those less fortunate than themselves, especially widowed people in other countries. I feel certain that next year we’ll repeat the event and that more people will be drawn to participate, but meanwhile, thanks to the generosity of local film makers, we’re putting together a short DVD and hope to make it accessible through the Sunday Scene website.Perhaps the DVD will inspire some of you to do something similar for one of the many different ‘shoebox’ appeals.
For more details of the Romanian Christmas Shoebox Appeal see www.linkromania.co.uk

Jacquie