Sometimes we widows are sad right away, but sometimes it takes a while for it all to sink in.  If there are children at home, you may feel like you have to be strong for the rest of the family.  Years later when the kids are grown, you may start seeing your grief come to the surface.  The empty house may suddenly highlight just how lonely life is. One day you will start recognizing what needs to change.  Your journey will seem clearer to you.  Profound and significant changes (like the empty house) may nudge you into the life that has been waiting for you. Everything hangs on those first healing steps.  It is not enough to know what to do, you have to do it.  Some widows have a hard protective shell around their lives, a way of protecting themselves from further pain and loss.  This protective shell has to soften before the tears of loss can be shed. The pain of loss, grief and despair usually helps to heal our broken hearts and are necessary parts of our journey.  Then we become more open to experiencing ourselves differently.  We are no longer who we were, and we understand that we are changing. I do not suggest for one moment that it is easy – it is not!  Nor that there are any quick fixes or guarantees.  As you start down this new road, you cannot know exactly where it will take you. A journey of change often goes against what others expect from you.  It may require you to step out of line and others may not like it. It may require that you take control and write your own script – only you know how your grief will reflect your own unique journey.