My life as I knew it ended on January 1st of this year. Yet, to my surprise and shock, life itself for me didn’t entirely end. I remember the first time I left the house to run a normal errand, a couple of weeks after he died. I went to…

I’ve written before about my mother-in-law and how growing up in a home where she allowed my husband’s abuse had such profound, lasting effects on him. In turn, that also had lasting effects on me and our children. He was never very comfortable expressing his emotions and the one emotion…

The hardest thing about being widowed for me is the sense of crushing loneliness. Once, my very existence mattered to someone else. Sure, I still have plenty of people who value my existence — but never in the same way that my husband did. I know that I was very…

I went to an appointment with my youngest son today. He was getting a tattoo to memorialize his cat, who had shared his bedroom for the past 8 years and was very bonded to him. …

The financial realities of a recent widow aren’t very pretty. I hope I’ll have enough money to survive, but it often looks dicey. My landlord informed me that my rent is going up by $300 a month in November, which is still below the market rate, and it’s more than…

The title already tells you what this will be about, so I assume that if you don’t want to read about it, you’ll see yourself out. I couldn’t find a more appropriate picture to use for this article because all the photos related to the topic of menopause show elderly…

Eight months after my husband's death, he occasionally visits me, always telling me about what will happen in my future. I’ve come to look at it like he’s my wingman from the other side, helping me out. I don’t understand how he’s visiting me or what it means, but I…