I have a fondness for telling other widow’s stories, extracting nuggets of truth to inform, inspire or benefit another widow. After Donnie’s death I was uncertain about what to say or how to say it.  The truth is, I was just moving by instinct and a passion to help others grieve and heal. If I knew then what I know now, I would never have wasted even a single minute doubting my path.  It’s natural to question and doubt, but the older I get the less I worry about anything. I now see that my life unfolds in direct relationship to how I accept change.  I know that the turmoil of life shall pass, because it always does.  Life is like the seasons – Winter goes into Spring, into Summer, into Fall and then back to Winter.  If we get stuck in Winter it is because we are afraid of change.  Spring cannot come to us unless we are ready to accept it. No matter what you’re struggling through – the pain, the grief and the anguish – you can still go inside of yourself and find peace.  Whatever is happening, you control your reactions and emotions.  Clearly you can’t control the event, death has its own time, but how you react, grieve and heal is all on your time. I wish I knew this when Donnie died.  I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and self-doubt.  It’s a gift to finally understand, at any age, that you are the creator of your own journey and can go down any path you choose. Losing our loved ones has taught all of us that we are more resilient than we knew, in large part because we did have them to love.