Today is a day for crying.

Innovate

Widow related movies from listal.com

Some of these are uplifting, but several of these are serious tear-jerkers.

Widow related movie listing on Fandago

LOL!

A comic book series called "Widow Warriors."

Biblical Support

Luke 18:1-8    The Stubborn Widow Perseveres Until Justice Is Done; 

The widow's demand:  'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

"For some time [the judge] refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'"

And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

He is not deaf to the wail of the orphan, nor to the widow when she pours out her complaint; Do not the tears that stream down her cheek cry out against him that causes them to fall? He who serves God willingly is heard; his petition reaches the heavens.   From:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importunate_Widow

 

Support for Widows in The Old Testament: 

Deuteronomy 10:18 (Show me Deuteronomy 10)

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.

Deuteronomy 24:17 (Show me Deuteronomy 24)

“You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge,

Deuteronomy 27:19 (Show me Deuteronomy 27)

“‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Isaiah 1:17 (Show me Isaiah 1)

learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Isaiah 1:23 (Show me Isaiah 1)

Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them.

Isaiah 10:2 (Show me Isaiah 10)

to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

Jeremiah 22:3 (Show me Jeremiah 22)

Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

From:  http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?words=justice+widow&phrase=&not-words=&scope=Old+Testament&matches=&search-text=all

American widows healing by helping Rawandan widows

This is a sad and yet heartwarming story

The Chart- Supermom myth can make you miserable

One of the good things I've learned in my 40's is that it's not really possible or necessary to do absolutely everything absolutely perfectly.  By allowing yourself to accept that doing your best is good enough (as you have the option to make corrections, if necessary later).  Stop beating yourself up.

The recurring trapped feeling (1 resignment)

It started when my late husband was hospitalized, precancer diagnosis.  We both just knew something was horribly wrong. I noticed that initially confident doctors would begin hedging about what might be wrong and then would hand his case off to another set of doctors.   It happened three times.  By the time they finally told us that he had cancer of "the everything," we'd pretty much figured it out on our own.  I felt panicked and trapped.  I felt like there should have been something that I could do to make the cancer somehow go away.  I read about it, spoke with multiple specialists, consulted herbalists, but there was nothing.  I buckled down and strived to give him perfect support and to show unconditional love.  The trapped feeling diminished.  I felt that everything would be okay if I could just channel sufficient energy.  After the diagnosis had finally been given, along with the prognosis for less than one year of life, my husband and I returned home with the best of the most powerful pain killers.  It was fine for a couple of weeks.  Then his condition took a sudden turn for the worse.  He became unresponsive while I was in the middle of spoon feeding him ice chips.  I knew that he wanted to die at home, but it was too soon.  I panicked and called 911.  The emergency room physician diagnosed dehydration and possible pneumonia.  He said that if we were to do nothing, it would be over in a couple of hours.  I could not simply tell them to do nothing, even though that was what my late husband had told me to do.  Treatment was started.  He improved well enough to be able to take a single walk up and down the hall of the hospital ward.  I told myself that the key to keeping him alive was to keep him in the hospital.  His oncologist was willing to indulge me.  Each day, he thought up some new, completely unneeded test that had to be done in order to justify continued hospital stay.  At one point, my late husband's internist chastized me for taking up a much needed hospital bed without legitimate medical reson. Then my late husband admitted that he was seeing ghosts, dead people.  He said they at first were gray, shadowed human forms.  But now, they were in color.  They were different races and genders.  He said the only way to tell the ghosts from the real people was that when the ghosts moved away, it was at super, inhuman speeds.  I'd read about the "visions" in the hospice book and new they meant approaching death.  One afternoon in the hospital, my late husband told me that a ghost that had spent the morning sitting near the window had come across to the hospital bed and gotten in his face.  My late husband said that he did not recognize the man as friend or relation.  He told me he did not want to die in a hospital full of ghosts.  He insisted that I take him home.  I didn't want him to die, especially not in the house.  When I told him about my fear, he told me that I could wheel him onto the front porch when the time came, but that I had to let him die at home.  By that point, I'd read many things claiming that death was merely a transition of body rather than the end of a soul.  The hospice books were filled with stories of suffering people clinging to life and begging their loved ones to be taken home to die.  I became convinced that the spirit lingers where it leaves the body, or maybe that its point of reentry to this world, for purposes of visitation, is the location from where it left.  I didn't want to risk the stranding of his spirit in a hospital filled with unknown ghosts.  All sorts of people have died there.  I worried that some of them might be hostile.  I decided that if there had to be a transition point, it should be where he wanted it to be.  The decision gave me the strength and courage to bring him home where his spirit could be at peace.  Two of his friends came to the hospital to gather his things and drive them home.  I rode with my late husband in the ambulance.  Before we left the hospital, he thanked the nursing staff for taking such good care of him and kept repeating that he felt like a kid at Christmas.

A coward dies a thousand times before his death.  A brave man dies but once. ~William Shakespeare~

It's too bad, but I think that I am a bit of a coward.

Justice

When our husbands die, some of us are left unprotected.  There are so many unscrupulous animals out there looking to prey upon us.  This one got the punishment he more than rightly deserved.

Loan Countdown Calculator

For some reason, it's hard to find calculators to countdown loans these days.  Here is a link to one that I've used.

LOL! Purses made from ostrich eggs.

A widow's creative enterprise inspired by her late husband's business. 

She has been out there representing her husband for 10 years.

This is a heartwarming story of how a 9/11, military widow continued her late husband's passion for helping military families.

She lost him before she had him

British man killed in shark attack during honeymoon
http://m.dailybreeze.com/dailybreeze/db_31970/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=D7wSV0P8

Innovate

Why remove a life marker.

What could they possibly want with tombstones?  Were they planning to hold them for ransom? How could they try to erase the marker of someone's life?

 

Stolen tombstones found inside suspected meth house, authorities say

from the LA Times

Authorities serving a search warrant at a San Bernardino home this week discovered narcotics, firearms and about two dozen stolen tombstones.

Four residents were arrested Tuesday at the Loma Linda home and charged with possession and sale of methamphetamine, illegal possession of firearms and possession of stolen property, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

The suspects were identified as John Bleuer, Steve Hansen, Louis Anchelowitz and Lisa Jackson.

While searching the home, authorities noticed several tombstones lying around in the backyard, sheriff's officials said. The granite markers each had custom inscriptions.
Investigators were able to track them to Montecito Memorial Park in the city of Colton, just two miles away from the home. Authorities are now looking for the family members to identify the tombstones -- valued at about $48,000 -- so they can be returned to the proper place in the cemetery.

Investigators also found two firearms inside the house.

Anyone with who can identify any of the stolen tombstones, or has information about the alleged meth house, is asked to call authorities at (909) 387-3545.

-- Robert Faturechi

Click here to view this article

Really?

Information regarding widows' finances

I think this is unfair

We can't know the real story of course, but considering the propaganda, the man was probably only doing what his superiors told him to do.  As a result, his elderly widow is left without financial support.

Er...

I kept my husband's ashes, but this coping technique is not for me. 

Where's the harm?

After my husband died, I cashed in his frequent flier miles using this same technique.  I used the money to pay for some of his funeral expenses.

I'm sure that we all understand her pain and rage for this senseless loss.

Limit Brain Bashing

In the beginning, it is best to limit the amount of time that you spend sitting alone stewing and suffering. Suffering feeds suffering and you can become overwhelmed by grief. It will be painful to be around others for quite awhile, especially vibrant, perky people who try to "cheer you up." My son needed reassurance that I was still there and would continue to be there for him. He would anxiously try to get me to play video games with him, but I could not at first. Instead, all I could do was cradle him in our Lazy Boy chair while he watched cartoons. Surrounded by my warmth, he slowly returned to feeling safe in my arms.  He accepted that I had not abandoned him, even though I was not "all there."  

What got me through the early days was engagement in mind numbing activities that drowned out my ruminative thoughts and allowed my mind to quiet. When the loss was very fresh, concentration was very difficult. Trying to learn a new activity or attempting perform too involved or complicated tasks increases frustration and worsens suffering. Instead, focus on simple, repetitive activities that require little or no conscious thought.  As your mind become stronger, you can slowly spend increasingly more time sitting and processing your grief when you are prepared in the "on times" and doing more complicated numbing activities when you are in the "off times."

Below are some activities that helped me:

Cleaning the house: scrubbing the floors, ironing, folding clothes, washing windows, detailing the cars

Gardening: trimming spent flowers one at a time, raking leaves, cutting the grass with a manual powered mover, pulling weeds.

Greenovating: picking up trash from the street. During the week of the first anniversary of my husband's death, I painted and then repainted my entire bathroom.

Watching old cartoons (In the old cartoons, the good guys always win and no one is ever actually harmed, unlike many of the modern day cartoons.)

Play noncompetitive games that you already know (as your concentration may be too limited to learn something new & competing will increase your stress): video poker, jig saw puzzles, maze games.

Cooking (likely it will be more relaxing to do it for others at first): chopping fruits & vegetables, stirring pots, kneading bread/dough

Move the body:

Disorganized Dance (chose trance inducing music like techno or songs with strong drum beats; avoid slow songs or those with vocals): let your body flail around freely.

Organized: Tai Chi/Qigong (if you already know them); aerobics (probably not in person; can get videos from the library or watch classes on cable/satellite)

Sort big piles of little things: loose change, screws, nails.

Art work:  I bought a large bag of beads from one of those dollar stores.  I hot glued them onto an enlarged image of the Celtic maze that I'd had enlarged at Kinkos. You could also do needle point, knitting, or sewing. Attempting to paint images may create difficulties if they turn out to be related to your loss and you do them too early.

Do you have other ideas?  Email me? 

National Post: Conservatives threaten lawsuit against asbestos widow

This is unfortunate. She is only trying to get the word out in order to help others.

National Post: Conservatives threaten lawsuit against asbestos widow

Tristin Hopper
Monday, August 15, 2011

Conservative Party leadership have threatened legal action against a Quebec asbestos widow turned anti-asbestos campaigner. On July 29, Michaela Keyserlingk received a cease-and-desist email from Conservative Party Executive Director Dan Hilton. The email concerned an ad banner that Ms. ...

Read more »

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You received this email because your friend Dana thought you would be interested in the article linked above.
© 2010 The National Post Company. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited.

Take it slow

This poor woman's mistake could happen to anyone.  Be careful about storing and purging, especially before your head is completely together. I boxed up my late husband's "best things" and put them in a closet for my when my son gets older. 

article from The Jamestown Sun

You have been sent this article from Dana kerry
For those who live near there.

Widows' retreat planned for September
Kari Lucin - 08/12/2011

For women who have lost their husbands, sharing stories in a safe, supportive environment can be vital to the grieving process. The Jamestown Area Grief Support Team (JAGST) will offer a retreat for widows Sept. 16-18 at the Maryvale Retreat Center, Valley City, where the women will discuss their experiences and learn ways of coping with grief. "It's work, healing," said Kathy Vandeberghe, a widow who attended JAGST's first widows' retreat. "Either you will become better, or you will become bitter." The nonprofit, volunteer grief support team started in 2002, and offers support to people who have lost loved ones, through education and support groups. Offering a retreat geared specifically for widows was Vandeberghe's idea, and the first one was a smash success, said Eileen Lisko, JAGST member. Twelve women attended, one with a loss as recent as three months prior to the retreat, and another who had lost a husband 20 years ago. "When we heard from them afterward, (they said) this really has changed my life," Lisko recalled. This year's retreat will include a presentation on signs of depression from Tracy Johnk of Jamestown Regional Medical Center, who will explain how to tell the difference between grief and depression, and a presentation from Angie Kokott about expressing grief through art and music. A panel of JAGST members who have lost their spouses will share their stories of loss, and then the widows on the retreat will share their experiences. "The more you share, the more healing it is to you and the other people too," said Diane Witzig, JAGST member. Listening to other widows and telling their own stories can be especially helpful because people experiencing grief often never take an opportunity to deal with it, Lisko said. "We're so conditioned to try to be strong." As might be expected, the retreat will include many sad moments, but it will also include laughter and plenty fun activities, including massages, hand and feet treatments, music, a tea, movie night and a pajama party. There's even a candy bar, with a vast array of candy to choose from. "It was a great experience," Lisko said. Anyone interested in signing up for the widows' retreat may print out a registration form at jagst.org. They may also call Lisko at 251-1280 or 269-4521, Witzig at 952-7508 or 320-4915 or Vandeberghe at 952-8001 or 659-8001. Sun reporter Kari Lucin can be reached at 701-952-8453 or by email at klucin@jamestownsun.com