When It Comes to Grief and Loss

Sometimes the thing you least want to do becomes the very thing that touches other people most. I never wanted to write The Widowers Notebook, a book that chronicles my wife, Joy’s sudden death. I resisted writing it, then resisted publishing it. I told myself it was too personal, too revealing, too painful. I worried until the day it was published. Then I started traveling around the country with the book, meeting people, hearing their stories, their need to tell them; men and women talking of grief and loss and, if not wanting answers at least acknowledgment that although they may never get over their loss they will get better. Messages from strangers flood my website and inbox every day telling me I have written their words, thanking me for having the courage to write them. I tell them it was not courage; it was simply the way I processed my grief. Everywhere I go … Read more