On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties — Thelma Zirkelbach

Widowhood...a status with some deference but a role few seek. A new beginning usually greeted with dread rather than anticipation. The writers of this collection express the range of emotions at the loss of a spouse but the overwhelming message is affirmation of the strength they find to create new lives after deep loss. Widows and widowers will read these stories and poems with knowing nods, sighs and smiles. Other readers will find insight into a common human condition and perhaps courage to face their own unsought new beginnings. As the subtitle suggests, this is widowhood for smarties, for those who acknowledge the pain of loss but who are learning to live in spite of it, even to build on it. Both men and women have contributed to On Our Own...essays, fiction, and poetry that explore the emotion and experience of losing a spouse. The writers include those who were married for fifty years or more, those who shared only a few months with a soul mate before being separated forever, and many in between. Anger, fear, sorrow, sweet and bittersweet memories, along with hope, appear again and again in these pages.