Forever Grateful for Family and Friends
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 15 seconds
Being a widow is the most challenging journey that anyone will ever travel.
In a flash, we learned who we can count on to love and support us when we need it more than ever.
My immediate family is the core of my support team.
However, as Melissa Kirsch wrote in the NY Times, “Chosen families are created outside the structures of (and often in place of) the traditional nuclear family.”
My chosen family includes:
- My Rabbi,
- Temple members,
- Neighbors,
- Friends and
- My Hanson Park freinds.
In addition, an essential component of my chosen family has been my fellow widows.
None of us would have ever chosen to be a widow. But, having become a widow, we have developed a priceless bond of friendship.
As Workingwomen.com wrote,
Family is more than blood and a name. The people stood by you when you needed them and made you laugh when you felt like you couldn’t.
I will forever be grateful to my chosen family.
They have filled a portion, but not all, of the hole in my heart.
Jan’s never-ending love fills the balance.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
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My Chosen Family Helps Me Manage Grief
Stephen Colbert: Grateful for Grief
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 15 secondsCan we learn to love the things we most wish had never happened? Can we become grateful for grief? Heartbreak? The deaths of loved ones? Stephen Colbert believes we can and sits down with Anderson Cooper to explain why and how. Listen to the podcast and read the transcript.
