After we lose our husbands we are unbalanced and being a “widow” is a strange new role. I was surprised to find that a dominant emotion for me was fear. Fear that I would never emerge from the emotional fog. Fear that I would never again be able to laugh and experience joy. Fear that I would fail as a parent. Fear that my memories would fade away. I think much of the fear I had was the fear of an unknown future that would not include my husband. I do not believe that a loss of the magnitude we have experienced is something we “get beyond”, “work through”, or “move on” from. Grieving is a loss of not only our loved one, but also our life as we knew it. It’s a matter of learning to incorporate our pain into our new life and new future. There are no shortcuts and no way out of our pain, we just have to move forward. It all comes back to us, we have to take control of our fears and take one step at a time into our future. If we choose do let fear control us, we may get struck in our grief. “We must be the change we wish to see in the world”, Mahatma Gandhi