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Title: For Widows Only!
Author: Annie Estlund
Paperback: 324 pages
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
ISBN: 0595291104
$22.95
Available from your favorite bookseller
http://www.forwidowsonly.com
Excerpt
Prologue: About This Book
ALONG THE ROAD
I walked a mile with Pleasure
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she,
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!
–Robert Browning Hamilton
Welcome, friend. Come walk along with us. I have invited several widows, from a wide range of ages, backgrounds and experiences, to join us on this journey through grief. We want to take your hand and help guide you through the worst of widowhood. Maybe we can help a little. Please let us try.
For Widows Only! is the book I searched for and couldn’t find as a new widow. I was looking for “nuts and bolts” advice, but I also desperately needed comfort, encouragement and understanding from an ordinary widow (or many) like myself. Lynn Caine’s Widow and Being a Widow were pretty good, especially for young mothers, and they remain available even though they are decades old. Aside from those, I was surprised to find how few widowhood books were on the market and that most of those were written either by celebrities or by professionals who had studied widowhood but not experienced it. Many books dealing with grief in general were written by men, and others treated grief as a one size fits all malady. Sometimes I found only a hole on the bookstore shelf where widowhood books should have been. For all the obvious need, there seemed surprisingly little help available.
This also is the book I had begun writing decades before my husband died. I became a sympathetic student of the mourning process as a young mother, when my best friend from Cottey College days, Pauli Shelden Jensen, lost her young husband to cancer when she was just 29. She was left with three babies, the youngest born the week her husband underwent surgery disclosing the extent of his malignancy. Having three little ones of my own at that time brought home the horror of her situation.
A few months after Will’s death, Pauli and I began recording her thoughts and gathering piles of research material on the subject. We interviewed other widows, formulated an overall theme and outlined chapters. But, due to the demands of our six young children and the many miles that stretched between us, that project withered on the vine. Papers languished, yellowed and became havens for silverfish in our garages, as the realities of daily life consumed us. Pauli put some of our ideas to use, forming a local support group for widows and widowers in Minneapolis. But following her move to Phoenix, our dream collapsed. Perhaps if we had had e-mail available then, we might have finished that book.
Over the years we often talked about how we really should resuscitate “the book.” Then, several years ago, “it” happened to me; I was suddenly a widow. I was completely thrown. All I thought I knew about the subject seemed remote and unreal. I quickly learned that in widowhood, as in most life changes, experience is the best, but most painful, teacher. Only someone who has been through such intense grief can fully appreciate the pain. That stunning lesson is worthy of capital letters: IT’S ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BEING A NEW WIDOW THAN KNOWING ONE.
No woman can sufficiently prepare for the role of widow and thereby escape pain. In my research I ran into several counselors who had worked with individual widowed clients and as grief support group leaders prior to becoming widowed themselves. They were stunned to find themselves just as helplessly shaken as their clients. It’s not that we don’t hurt for our friends, clients, and loved ones when they suffer losses. We do; we even share some of their agony. However, once we experience the loss personally, we realize that the pain is magnified a hundred-fold and lasts far longer for widows themselves than for their sympathetic friends and counselors.
Six months after my husband died, I awoke with a start, sat up on the edge of my bed, sucked in a deep breath and decided it was time to write that long overdue book for widows. I had just awakened—again—with a jolt that left my pulse racing, my palms sweating and my heart pounding. I seemed intent on reliving the death scene, over and over again. Why? Would that never end? Was that natural? Would anything ever seem normal again? I had bushels of questions. What I needed was a book that would be like a sympathetic widowed friend to keep by my side, one that would try to anticipate and answer my questions and assure me that my scary feelings were natural, predictable and temporary. I needed the book that I had wanted to write years earlier. Pauli was delighted with my plan to take on this project; she agreed to listen, edit, advise and support my effort, from her home in California, which she indeed has.
From the first day of my nightmare, I had poured my pain into a journal as therapy. Those words had been meant “for my eyes only,” but I soon realized many entries included the kind of intimate sharing I had been seeking from an author. I needed to know she had suffered many of the fears and insecurities I felt, so it made sense that you readers might also need that. I include some of those entries, mostly at the beginnings of chapters. Because most widows cling to a few poignant or pithy sayings, keeping them stuck to the refrigerator or tucked into a wallet for when they need a “lifeline,” I include many of my favorites here.
About For Widows Only
From the author: ”For Widows Only! is personal, intimate and honest. An early reader of the manuscript said, “This is an extraordinary book for widows, with straight from the hip girl talk that every widow will appreciate.” In addition to practical nuts and bolts advice, I include my own most intimate feelings, but also those of more than 80 other widows, so the book is relevant to widows of all ages and at all stages in their grief. For Widows Only! will guide grieving widows through their most anxious moments and help them find answers to their most pressing questions.
I have wanted to write an “ideal widowhood book” since my best-friend was widowed when we were both only 29 years old. We each had three young children, so it wasn’t hard for me to imagine what she must be going through. Her trials and anguish became my own. We tried at that time to develop a widow’s guidebook, but household demands and hundreds of miles that separated us won out and the unfinished book became food for silverfish in my garage.
When I was widowed without warning at the age of 55, I was horrified to discover how ill-equipped I was, even after all that research years earlier, to deal with the intensity of first-hand widowhood. You have to actually be a widow to fully understand how widows feel. Disappointed by the available books that purported to be widows’ guides to recovery, I felt compelled to follow through on my earlier mission. The need was still there. At about six months into my grief I began organizing what I knew would be that “ideal widowhood book,” although due to grieving and learning to live again, it didn’t get published and available to others until early 2004.
The book is divided into three sections, “What Happened?” “What Now?” and “What Next” Few new widows will wish to read straight through the book because, as a reviewer noted, “It’s much too jam-packed with helpful information to be digested in one gulp.” It is organized in such a way that she will easily find whatever part she feels she needs at any stage of her grief.
Part I, “What Happened?” reassures newer widows and suggests coping skills to help as they slog their way through the confusing maze of early grief and anxiety. Part II, “What Now?” follows with possible solutions to the most worrisome problems and questions widows face as they seek to regain stability in their lives alone. In the third section, “What Next?” my friends and I provide a framework for how each widow, when she is ready, can construct a satisfying new life for herself. Not the same life, I always caution widows, but a new and interesting life.
I still ache for newer widows who think they will never survive their trauma or that life will never again be worthwhile. I offer guidelines to deal with those fears while also providing positive steps toward designing their new life alone. A psychotherapist told me, “For Widows Only! is an invaluable resource for widows. I wish I had had it available when I was dealing with widows in my practice.” I’ve been complimented on the forceful writing and voluminous research, but you will find it is also refreshingly intimate, compassionate and intelligent. A long-time educator calls it, “A real page-turner. Amazing for a widows’ book.”
I tried to anticipate the readers’ needs, and apparently have succeeded. A recent widow from central Wisconsin said, “It was as if you were reading my mind…. Everything I had been thinking, you talked about.” As I was writing, I tried to envision taking my readers by the hand and gently leading them through the cold, gray tunnel of grief and out the other side. I tried to use both wisdom and wit to convince them that they will survive. There is nothing more valuable than reading views from surviving widows to help newer widows realize they are not alone, that they share their scary path with millions who have not only survived, but often thrived.
In these 300 plus pages, widows will find what they need most: hope and a helping hand. Widowers and others who grieve may be surprised to find that the book’s message applies to them as well. According to an expert in human relations, “This comprehensive book also is a must-read for anyone with a close widowed friend or relative.” A retired therapist sums it up this way, “Finally, concrete help for those who grieve.” A working therapist said almost exactly the same thing. I can understand that. I wish I had had this book to help when I was recently widowed.
This self-help book, filled with down-to-earth hints and intimate personal discussions, maintains an upbeat tone and offers real hope for the widow’s future. All widows know life will never be the same without their husbands, but it can be very good again. For Widows Only! is designed to be every widow’s best friend, always there at her side for when she needs it.
About the Author
At the age of 29, Annie Estlund began planning a self-help book for widows with her recently widowed best friend, Pauli, also 29. The two had become lifelong friends while attending Cottey College. In spite of their enthusiasm, that project soon became a struggle…with Annie living in Waukesha, a Milwaukee suburb, and Pauli living in Minneapolis. It died on the vine as each succumbed to the time required to care for three babies and maintain a home.
Annie finally received her degree in journalism, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, at the age of 45, shortly after her youngest departed for college. She had co-authored a book about working mothers that was “almost published” in the ’70s, and she wrote 4 (mediocre) romance novels in the ’80s, just for fun. But mostly she wrote for (much bigger) newspapers, and for regional and national magazines.
After a stint as Public Relations Writer for the Milwaukee Art Museum, Annie worked as the editor of several area newsletters. In 1986 she and Bruce retired to write full time, and soon moved to their little log cottage on the rocky shores of Lake Michigan in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin.
Then “IT” happened to her. At age 55 Annie was suddenly widowed. She was completely thrown, and quickly realized that her “study of widowhood” years earlier was of little help to her now. She learned the hard way that only a widow can understand the harsh realities of widowhood well enough to comfort another widow. And she knew in her bones that she was going to write that long overdue book for widows.
She quickly began keeping an intimate journal of her turmoil and grief, and soon began designing what she still considers the perfect book to help widows deal with the agony and challenges of widowhood and life alone. For Widows Only! is that book.
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professional life and studying at the Gemological Institute of America, Gerard’s expertise is well-rounded, including special order work, custom designs, estate and antique jewelry as well as providing expert jewelry repair and appraisals.
writing my first novel, Silent Battlefields, that the scenes, many episodes, and the dialogue emerge spontaneously in the actual writing of the work and I will follow that tactic in writing Justin’s Quest. There are many ways to go about writing a novel and I strongly believe that whatever works for the individual author is the best way to go. For example, some writers outline every step of the way from beginning to ending before starting to write. It is the outcome that matters most, in my opinion, and not the method of writing.
