WiCare

Author Laurie-Ann Weis tells what she learned in the first year of widowhood.

Becoming a widow means grocery shopping for one. Losing friends. Changing the message on the answering machine. Home repair problems.

The Christmas holidays can be especially difficult after a spouse’s death, says Laurie-Ann Weis of Laguna Niguel. Cards made her cry. She refused invitations to parties.

Now, six years after losing her husband, Weis has published her book, “The After Journey; Getting Through the First Year.”

Her book is more about questions than answers, she said, because everyone is different and so are the circumstances.

Should a widow keep wearing her wedding ring? What do you say when someone asks, “How are you ?”

Weis knows all about these decisions. When she was widowed in 1999, no one told her what new realities were ahead. She read books about the stages of grief and dealing with emotions, but no one told her about the practicalities of living alone.

Holidays are silent torture, she said.

“What I learned was that holidays bring up the past,” she said. “For some people it’s hard to go back, it makes it very lonely. Other people, they like to be surrounded by family and think about the past, it brings them comfort. There’s no right or wrong.

“On the holiday, they reach beyond their own grief to keep the joy. They don’t want to be a burden.

“People need to do what they need to do. Some people leave and travel. Some people go through the motions – they stay with the family because they want everything to be normal, then they go home, and they write to me, and they’re hysterical.”

Other people need to have compassion without making judgments, she said. Everybody does this journey differently; nobody wants to not be understood afterwards.

“I never got angry and wasn’t bitter,” Weis said. “I would just say when looking at other couples, how lucky they are to not have these feelings. They couldn’t possibly understand.

“Grief comes in and out like a wave. It’s physical, like your heart being cut out. You continue to live without thinking.”

Unnatural fatigue, emptiness, hopelessness – all are emotional responses to grief, said Weis. At the same time, a widow or widower needs to deal with change. And that’s the practical side of living alone – the transition the one left behind may not be prepared for.

“Your social life changes,” she said. “Couples leave you alone. They go back to couplehood. You have to find new friends, invent a new life.

“There are the little things not discussed in other books. Like coming home to an empty house. And what do you do on Sundays?”

The book isn’t just about Weis’ experiences. People contacted her from all over the world on her Web site, www.laurieannweis.com.

“There was a lot of e-mail from England, Canada, Australia and Singapore,” Weis said. “Grief is the same everywhere. No matter the race or religion, everyone went through the same thing.

“The first year you learn new routines. And you don’t make any big decisions.

“I gave Steve’s clothes away the first five days. I divided them up for five people and felt good when I saw someone wearing them. But everyone is different. You have to do it your own way.”

“Make joy a goal,” she says in her book. “Little by little, the joyful events pile up…. The joy cannot be the same, but it’s good, just different.”

You can trust that pain will go away. You can go back to your childhood, re-establish old connections, find what you’re comfortable with, said Weis.

Weis found herself talking to her radio and television, and she kept them on all the time when she was home. Certain television personalities became her friends.

“I didn’t begin to socialize until Year Three,” Weis said. “It takes that long to re-invent your life. But I’m so different than I was before. I’m more vulnerable when it comes to health issues. I’ve learned not to get bogged down in little things.”

When the first shock of grief fades, it’s time to go to work. That means, according to Weis, looking for joy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The After Journey: Getting Through The First Year” is available at www.laurieannweis.com

Five things Weis wished she knew the first year

1 Grief is a solitary journey, you figure it out as you go along.

2 Don’t make any big financial or life decisions the first year. Wait 48 hours before making a decision.

3 Friends are available but when she was invited to couples’ parties, the hosts didn’t include a guest invitation. After a while, the ranks closed around couplehood.

4 Transitional relationships put you back into a type of intimacy. It’s a moment in time and usually the person moves on.

5 Joy is a goal, and you have to work for it in the second year.