When a loved one dies, we are left not only with our memories but also with a host of mixed emotions. It is way too easy to dwell on what one could have done better, why friends don’t understand us and why you feel so alone. There are feelings of frustration, of not knowing what to do or who we are now that we don’t have the title of a “wife”. It is only when we listen to the experiences of other widows that we can truly appreciate the grief journey. It is so easy to resent the fact that that long term friends find it difficult to call or visit. To wonder why this had happened to both of us. It was so easy to question the very purpose of life. To be angry and frustrated with yourself when there was not a single thing you can do about the past. Slowly we learn to remember how good it is to laugh at parts of the life that we have shared with our loved one. We learn to be gentler with our families, our friends, ourselves - and with the past.