On February 14, 2010, I woke up at 5:00 in the morning. Jon didn’t make it home that night because he had died in a car accident.
I was 34 and he was 38. We had a 3-year-old son and I was three months pregnant. My life took a complete turn.
I felt no one could relate to me and my situation. If I went to a widow’s support group, the women were typically in their 70s. I had a 3-year-old son and a baby to raise, and they’d all been married 40 years with grown children. I know it’s still sad, but it’s very different. I always wished there was a support group for me, but there wasn’t.
Eventually, I began meeting with four young widows at casual restaurants where we would laugh, cry, talk and vent; and say, “yeah, I know what you’re going through” and actually know.
With John dying on Valentine’s Day, I also started Gifts of Love. These are care packages given to widows and their children. The packages would include something to provide comfort or joy to let the recipients know that people loved them. I always liked helping people, and found my best healing came from helping others. Once this was started, God kept putting young widows in my path. I wouldn’t have been able to run from it if I tried!
After seeing this make a difference, I decided to create a non-profit called We Do Care, and three years ago, we held our first support group in my church. It empowers widows with coping skills, and gives them a way to just put one foot in front of the other. We meet once a month and have different social events for kids, women and the whole family. It’s amazing how it’s grown. I just love what I do. It’s definitely what God put me here to do.
4 Comments
Mphatso Kamangira
September 4, 2019 at 8:39 amThis is very beautiful mission especially in this world where so many things unexpectable are happening. May the good Lord help you with all your needs to reach the needy.
Just to suggest if there could also be a way to assist the orphans who are raising themselves in their homes so that they should not see the difference coz there many grown up children girls and boys raising up their fellow siblings.
Kelly New
March 5, 2020 at 9:45 pmWhere is this group located? I was 42 when my husband died & I had never had children & we were only married 3 days when he passed. I found GriefShare but like you said, the ones in the group had/have all been married for 20+ years & have grown children & it would be nice to have people closer to my age that have experienced loss of a spouse.
Bob L
March 6, 2020 at 12:47 pmThanks for this article, and for how God helped you during such grief, and to bless you with helping others. I think of Psalm 147:3, in the Amplified Classic: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [curing their pains and their sorrows].” He does, doesn’t He?!
Another phrase from scripture that comes to mind is “…and underneath are the everlasting arms.” And your story made me think about the first chapter of 2 Corinthians. Here is that passage: 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC):
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement),
4 Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God.
5 For just as Christ’s [[a]own] sufferings fall to our lot [b][as they overflow upon His disciples, and we share and experience them] abundantly, so through Christ comfort (consolation and encouragement) is also [shared and experienced] abundantly by us.”
So thanks so much for sharing this, and I pray God’s continued blessing on you and your children, as well as your special ministry.
BL
Yohana Ngao
March 13, 2020 at 4:25 amMay God bless you for what you are doing!!!