Writing Widowhood

Writing Widowhood PDF Author: Jeffrey Berman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438458215
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Explores how memoirs of widowhood can help us understand the reality of bereavement and the critical role of writing and reading in recovery. The death of a beloved spouse after a lifetime of companionship is a life-changing experience. To help understand the reality of bereavement, Jeffrey Berman focuses on five extraordinary American writers—Joan Didion, Sandra Gilbert, Gail Godwin, Kay Redfield Jamison, and Joyce Carol Oates—each of whom has written a memoir of spousal loss. In each chapter, Berman gives an overview of the writer’s life and art before widowhood, including her early preoccupation with death, and then discusses the writer’s memoir and her life as a widow. He discovers that writing was, for all of these authors, both a solace and a lifeline, enabling them to maintain bonds with their lost loved ones while simultaneously moving on with their lives. These memoirs of widowhood, Berman maintains, reveal not only courage and resilience in the face of loss, but also the critical role of writing and reading in bereavement and recovery. Jeffrey Berman is Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of many books, including Death in the Classroom: Writing about Love and Loss and Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning, both also published by SUNY Press.

Writing Widowhood

Writing Widowhood PDF Author: Jeffrey Berman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438458215
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Get Book

Book Description
Explores how memoirs of widowhood can help us understand the reality of bereavement and the critical role of writing and reading in recovery. The death of a beloved spouse after a lifetime of companionship is a life-changing experience. To help understand the reality of bereavement, Jeffrey Berman focuses on five extraordinary American writers—Joan Didion, Sandra Gilbert, Gail Godwin, Kay Redfield Jamison, and Joyce Carol Oates—each of whom has written a memoir of spousal loss. In each chapter, Berman gives an overview of the writer’s life and art before widowhood, including her early preoccupation with death, and then discusses the writer’s memoir and her life as a widow. He discovers that writing was, for all of these authors, both a solace and a lifeline, enabling them to maintain bonds with their lost loved ones while simultaneously moving on with their lives. These memoirs of widowhood, Berman maintains, reveal not only courage and resilience in the face of loss, but also the critical role of writing and reading in bereavement and recovery. Jeffrey Berman is Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of many books, including Death in the Classroom: Writing about Love and Loss and Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning, both also published by SUNY Press.

Finding Love After Loss

Finding Love After Loss PDF Author: Marti Benedetti
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538152142
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Finding Love After Loss is a friendly guide to dating after the death of a spouse. Through interviews with widows and advice from experts in the field, this book details the singular challenges of women who are looking for love again after the loss of a partner—and the unexpected ways they are shaping their new lives.

The Widower's Notebook

The Widower's Notebook PDF Author: Jonathan Santlofer
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143132490
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Written with unexpected humor and great warmth, The Widower's Notebook is a portrait of a marriage, an account of the complexities of finding oneself single again after losing your spouse, and a story of the enduring power of familial love. "This is deeply moving ... beautifully written and modulated, with a dollop of droll, black humor. It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind."--Joyce Carol Oates On a summer day in New York Jonathan Santlofer discovers his wife, Joy, gasping for breath on their living room couch. After a frenzied 911 call, an ambulance race across Manhattan, and hours pacing in a hospital waiting room, a doctor finally delivers the fateful news. Consumed by grief, Jonathan desperately tries to pursue life as he always had--writing, social engagements, and working on his art--but finds it nearly impossible to admit his deep feelings of loss to anyone, not even his to beloved daughter, Doria, or to himself. As Jonathan grieves and heals, he tries to unravel what happened to Joy, a journey that will take him nearly two years.

Figuring Shit Out

Figuring Shit Out PDF Author: Amy Biancolli
Publisher: Behler Publications, LLC
ISBN: 1933016469
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
"Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.

A Widow's Story

A Widow's Story PDF Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007388160
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 21

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Book Description
My husband died, my life collapsed.

A Widow's Guide to Healing

A Widow's Guide to Healing PDF Author: Kristin Meekhof
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1492620602
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
"A very valuable and practical guide for any woman who has lost her husband due to an untimely death. Kristin Meekhof's journey is both inspiring and courageous and something we can all learn from." —Dr. Deepak Chopra An inspiring, accessible, and empowering guide for how to navigate the unique stresses and challenges of widowhood and create a hopeful future. When Kristin Meekhof lost her husband to cancer, she discovered what all widows learn: the moment you lose your partner, you must make crucial decisions that will impact the rest of your life. But where do you begin? This inspiring book shows grieving widows what to expect and how to deal with the challenges of losing a life partner. From immediate issues like finances, estates and medical bills to long-term hurdles such as single parenthood, being a widow in the workplace and navigating social situations by yourself, this book guides widows through the tumultuous and painful first five years to a more hopeful future.

The Widowed Self

The Widowed Self PDF Author: Deborah Kestin van den Hoonaard
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1554587220
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
How do older women come to terms with widowhood? Are they vulnerable or courageous, predictable or creative in dealing with this life challenge? Most books about widows usually focus on younger women; this book interweaves the voices of older widows their experiences and insights to show how they have come to terms with widowhood and have recreated their lives in new, unsuspected ways. The widows speak about how they relate to their children, their friends, to men. With powerful emotions they describe their husbands’ final illnesses and deaths, and the challenging early days of widowhood. Disputing stereotypes about older women and widows, The Widowed Self allows the reader to visualize the impact of losing one’s life partner and offers a new way of thinking about widowhood. This new book by Deborah Kestin van den Hoonaard fills a void in previous work on widowhood. Rather than seeing these women as unfortunate, passive victims of life, the reader will come to appreciate the strength and creativity with which these women face one of life’s greatest challenges, a challenge that affects more than half of all women over the age of sixty-five. Widows and their families, scholars, social workers and other professionals who work with older adults will all be interested in reading The Widowed Self: The Older Woman’s Journey through Widowhood.

Widows' Words

Widows' Words PDF Author: Nan Bauer-Maglin
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813599555
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Becoming a widow is one of the most traumatic life events that a woman can experience. Yet, as this remarkable new collection reveals, each woman responds to that trauma differently. Here, forty-three widows tell their stories, in their own words. Some were widowed young, while others were married for decades. Some cared for their late partners through long terminal illnesses, while others lost their partners suddenly. Some had male partners, while others had female partners. Yet each of these women faced the same basic dilemma: how to go on living when a part of you is gone. Widows’ Words is arranged chronologically, starting with stories of women preparing for their partners’ deaths, followed by the experiences of recent widows still reeling from their fresh loss, and culminating in the accounts of women who lost their partners many years ago but still experience waves of grief. Their accounts deal honestly with feelings of pain, sorrow, and despair, and yet there are also powerful expressions of strength, hope, and even joy. Whether you are a widow yourself or have simply experienced loss, you will be sure to find something moving and profound in these diverse tales of mourning, remembrance, and resilience.

Writing the Self in Bereavement

Writing the Self in Bereavement PDF Author: Reinekke Lengelle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000337049
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Winner, ICQI 2022 Outstanding Qualitative Book Award In Writing the Self in Bereavement: A Story of Love, Spousal Loss, and Resilience, Reinekke Lengelle uses her abilities as a researcher, poet, and professor of therapeutic writing to tell a heartfelt and fearless story about her grief after the death of her spouse and the year and a half following his diagnosis, illness, and passing. This book powerfully demonstrates that writing can be a companion in bereavement. It uses and explains the latest research on coming to terms with spousal loss without being prescriptive. Integrated with this contemporary research are stories, poetry, and reflections on writing as a therapeutic process. The author unflinchingly explores a number of themes that are underrepresented in existing resources: how one deals with anger associated with loss, what a healthy response might be to unfinished business with the deceased, continuing conversations with the beloved (even for agnostics and atheists), ongoing sexual desire, and secondary losses. As a rare book where an author successfully combines a personal story, heart-rending poetry, up-to-date research on grief, and an evocative exploration of taboo topics in the context of widowhood, Writing the Self in Bereavement is uniquely valuable for those grieving a spouse or other loved one, those supporting others in bereavement, and those interested in the healing power of poetry and life writing. Researchers on death and dying, grief counsellors, and autoethnographers will also benefit from reading this resonant resource on love and loss.

Widow To Widow

Widow To Widow PDF Author: Genevieve Davis Ginsburg
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
ISBN: 0738211338
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
From a widow and therapist, a guide to life after losing a husband, with reflections on grief and practical advice In this remarkably useful guide, widow, author, and therapist Genevieve Davis Ginsburg offers fellow widows -- as well as their family and friends -- sage advice for coping with the loss of a husband. From learning to travel and eat alone to creating new routines to surviving the holidays and anniversaries that reopen emotional wounds, Ginsburg give guidance on: Dealing with anger and guilt Maintaining family relationships Dating after widowhood Handling money Responding to others' support And more Widow to Widow walks readers through the challenges of widowhood and encourages them on their path to building a new life.