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Browse published articles attributed to Elaine Williams, with full-archive search.
When a relationship ends due to one partner dying, what is the correct time period to begin dating again? Grief is such a funny, unpredictable animal. Many people in years’ past think a year is a suitable time to wait before incorporating life changes, and yet for many of us, a year into our ...
The left side of the bed where my husband used to sleep remains neatly made, hardly a ripple disturbing the quilted surface. I sleep on the right side each night, where I had slept the twenty-plus years we were together. With time, I developed a habit of reading in bed. The left side remained ...
My husband was ill ten months with cancer when I had the dream. I had been taking care of his needs for almost eleven months, and even though some days there seemed to be progress, in hindsight I see it was really a steady progression on a downhill curve. One night I had a dream I was upstairs ...
Elaine Williams ©2008 Well, I confess right away I passed the stage where I could be called a girl about twenty five years ago. However, in the intervening time there was a lot of life and living that I’ve participated in and lived through. Many days held life’s usual ups and ...
Elaine Williams ©2008 When you become a widow your life changes and there is no guarantee of sanity in the transition. Some days are topsy-turvy; other days have a numbing calm. You wonder if life will ever be joyful again. You’re not crazy, you’re grieving. Joy has a way of ...
Elaine Williams copyright 2008 I have three boys who were 11, 18 and 19 when their father died from cancer. They all reacted differently to this loss, and many times I felt at a loss myself in trying to determine the best way to help them through their grief. My oldest son moved away from home ...
Elaine Williams ©2008 When does it become critical that you be touched with love or affection? Does something happen to those of us out of relationships for extended periods of time due to divorce, loss of a spouse or physical separation? Speaking for myself, as a widow of four years, some ...
When my husband was diagnosed with esophagus cancer, we never talked about him dying, except in the very beginning. I think we were afraid to voice the worst scenario we could think of, him not making it through this disease. He refused to consider taking the traditional route in medicine, which ...
Grief and loss come in a multitude of forms. There is grief due to loss of a loved one but there's also the sense of grief related to illness and the impending demise of a loved one. When our family pet, our dog Bear had to be put to sleep after ten years with us, it was more emotionally ...
©2008 When does talking about the loss of someone get to be too much? Is it still grief or is it descending into depression? Talking and writing about grief for me has been a catharsis, a way to heal my thoughts, emotions and fears. It is a slow, sometimes excruciating process. Not linear, and ...
One of my biggest challenges has been raising three boys as a single parent. I've been told by other parents that it's easier to deal with boys than girls. Usually this comes from a parent who has all girls. I totally, wholly disagree. Where did anyone ever get that idea? Boys have their own ...
Elaine Williams ©2008 Beginning a life as a widow was not an easy one for me, and whether you want it or not, it is a new life. Strange, alien, different from anything you have ever known. Many days I resisted any type of change, whether it was physical or emotional. I felt too tired ...
©2008 That last moment of my husband’s life, I stood beside his bed. It was the final moment of our twenty plus years together. My sister-in-law and my middle son were on the opposite side of the bed. My eldest son sat at the kitchen table. I had been sitting with my husband most of the ...
©2008 I recall a period in time, at about 18 months after my husband passed away, that I felt pretty good about myself. I had handled what life had thrown me and come out battered, but mostly okay on the other side. After caretaking my husband for almost a year, I was battling some minor health ...
After my husband’s death, I enclosed myself in an emotional shell. A hard cased, untouchable cocoon of nothingness. I wanted to be numb, I wanted to be left alone. Many days my self-imposed prison made me want to be loved by someone. Some days I lived and breathed by rote. God kept me breathing ...
There are days you sit in a chair and stare out the window because living seems to take too much energy. Even to think about what to make for dinner is an all-consuming task. It can be daunting, feeling as if there is nothing in this world that will ever hold your interest again. The mail order ...
I became a widow at 47. I'd always thought my husband and I would be together forever, or at least a lot longer than 20 years. We have three boys, who at the time were 11, 18 and 19. I ran the gamut of emotions...shock, fear, an utter stillness of nothing, a frenzy of activity, and on and on. ...
I've danced with him many times, a reluctant partner, my steps stumbling and my mind preoccupied. He came in persuasive and smooth, barely causing a ripple with his subtle entrance. Other times he visited boldly, making his presence well known. For me, dancing with the demon of loneliness ...
I became a widow at forty-seven years of age. I'd always thought my husband and I would be together forever, or at least a lot longer than the twenty years we had. In that time frame we had three boys, who at the time of his passing were eleven, eighteen and nineteen years of age. When the ...
One day, a little over three months after my husband's cancer diagnosis, was the first time I really thought he was going to die. He lay in bed and he could not get up from being so weak. I was so incredibly frightened. I knew with certainty there was a good chance he was going to die that ...
©2008 My husband chose to be cremated, and to that end I had arranged a time for friends and family to gather for a memorial service in remembrance. I gathered pictures of our twenty plus years together, creating a wonderful collage in pictures for the service. On this evening, the hospice ...
I remember vividly the day my husband was diagnosed with cancer. We sat in the doctor's office, not saying anything after the doctor confirmed the lesions on Joseph's esophagus were malignant. Even though we had asked for the truth, it was still an incredible shock. I had never actually thought ...
When my husband was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, we were shocked, never even having suspected this illness. He had always been relatively healthy, and then one day he couldn’t eat anymore. It all began a few months before the diagnosis. He felt an uneasy heaviness in his chest, but he ...
Due to life circumstances, the death of a spouse, I had been out of the dating game for some time and reentered the scene after a 27-year absence. I experienced what I like to call “culture shock”. One definition is as follows: “A state of bewilderment and distress experienced when suddenly ...
The day I lost my husband my heart felt ripped out, a feeling I had never experienced before. I felt clarity in the moment and confusion over where I was going, all at the same time. I wanted to cry at the injustice of a widow at 47 years of age. I had three boys and they each needed their ...
My youngest son was eleven when his father died. For the longest time he would cling to me when we were parting company, giving hugs and more hugs. I know this was his way of working through the loss of his father and I knew that eventually this phase would pass. Many times he would talk about ...
Recently I was asked to describe the best years of my life. Being a widow of 4 years and mother, there are many different times I considered to be the best years of my life. When I was younger, I remember summers going on seemingly forever. What wonderful times, playing tag or touch football ...
According to the U.S Census Bureau, there are approximately 700,000 new widows every year. To me, this is staggering, and I never thought I’d be a statistic. I've been asked many times if I wrote A Jou ey Well Taken: Life After Loss while my husband was ill. As a caretaker, and even though I ...
I became a widow at forty-seven years of age. I'd always thought my husband and I would be together forever, or at least a lot longer than twenty years. We have three boys, who at the time were eleven, eighteen and nineteen. When the reality of my situation sank in, I ran the gamut of ...
I know when I started the year out fresh in 2007, I felt incredibly lonely. I had been widowed for over two years, and found that when a spouse dies and you’re no longer part of a couple, it seems to affect the dynamics of previous friendships. Married friends no longer kept in touch in quite ...
The last two months of my husband's life I slept next to the bed Hospice had set up in our living room. At night, I lay on the loveseat I'd come to hate and listen intently to his labored breathing. It was what I did when my kids were babies—listen intently for the next breath to make sure ...
I lost my husband and best friend of 22 years when he was 59 and I was 47. We have three boys and I'd always thought we'd be together forever, however long that was, or at least another twenty years. I felt blindsided when I lost him to cancer after 11 months of illness. I had a terrible time ...
Is there such a thing as normal in grief? I believe we all have experiences that are similar, to a degree. But I also feel that grieving is an entirely personal thing. We all react to loss in our own way, in our own time and according to our own closely held beliefs. There is no schedule, no ...
There are many unique and varied reactions to grief and loss. We may all react differently and yet the end result, many times, is the same. There is a sense of a gaping hole in our chest, a deep emptiness that at first nothing can fill. I've run the gamut of emotions myself. When my husband ...
There were many nights as a new widow, I fell into an exhausted, restless sleep. In the first two years after my husband’s death, I had countless dreams in which he appeared. My dreaming seemed to revolve around day-to-day issues with my kids, money, fear of failure, and later, reentering the ...
I've become empowered, in total and full control of my life, or most of it....there's always the thing that blindsides you when you least expect it. The thing is, I didn't ask, seek or want this new empowerment. I thought I was doing okay. Married 20 years, three beautiful boys (okay, they ...
Wait, does that sound feminist, or sexist? It’s not meant to. There’s a story behind the shirt. I re-entered the dating world after 27 years absence. I had high hopes. I was a good person, a valuable human being with wants and needs. I’d been married 20 years, considered myself a well grounded ...