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Young Widow

 

Young Widow
Naked in the Memorial Playground

directed by Elizabeth Titus

Young Widow is a contemporary look at love and untimely loss in death-pobic Western society. Interviews with Young Widows and Widowers, clips, commentaries, and plenty of dark humor reveal the challenges and transitions through loss, grief and renewal.

 

 

Beyond Belief film poster

 

Beyond Belief
directed by Beth Murphy

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley are two ordinary soccer moms living in the affluent suburbs of Boston until tragedy strikes. Rather than turning inwards, grief compels these women to focus on the country where the terrorists who took their husbands' lives were trained: Afghanistan.

Over the course of two years, as they cope with loss and struggle to raise their families as single mothers, these extraordinary women dedicate themselves to empowering Afghan widows whose lives have been ravaged by decades of war, poverty and oppression - factors they consider to be the root causes of terrorism. As Susan and Patti make the courageous journey from their comfortable neighborhoods to the most desperate Afghan villages, they discover a powerful bond with each other, an unlikely kinship with widows halfway around the world, and a profound way to move beyond tragedy.

See Widows In the Hood for more about Beyond the 11th.

 

 

The Bride Wore Black

 

The Bride Wore Black
directed by Francois Truffaut, starring Jeanne Moreau

When her husband is shot on their wedding day, a newlywed turned widow seeks out the killers and eliminates them one by one in an act of vengeance. Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) is introduced to us trying to commit suicide, only to be stopped by her mother (Luce Fabiole) before she jumps from her window. Suddenly, Julie changes her attitude and informs her mother of her decision to take a long trip to forget. Yet, apparently, this is not what she has in mind. From this point on it is clear that she has something else in mind.

 

 

The Bride Wore Black

 

Widows' Peak
Mia Farrow, Joan Plowright and Natasha Richardson

Scandal, seduction, blackmail and murder. Thank heavens their husbands aren't alive! Set in Ireland in the 1920s, a mysterious young American woman wreaks havoc upon her arrival in Kilshannon, a small town inhabited largely by widows and led by Mrs. Doyle Counihan.

 

 

Mrs. Henderson Presents

Mrs. Laura Henderson (Judi Dench) may be a widow but she is by no means going to spend the rest her days playing bridge. The Windmill Theater becomes her game and the infamous showman Vivian Van Dam (Bob Hoskins) becomes her partner and fiercest opponent. The Germans are bombing London but the roar of the Windmill is all that can be heard, as Laura convinces Lord Cromer (Christopher Guest) to allow her actresses to be the one thing no one could ever imagine: Nude. Brought to its knees by war, what Mrs. Henderson Presents brings a nation to its feet in applause.

 

 

The Passion of Anna
directed by Ingmar Bergman

Andreas meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, but he is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation and remains disconnected.

 

 

 

Regret to Inform
Winner, 1999, Sundance Film Festival, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Academy Award Nomination for Best Feature Documentary, 1999

Regret to Inform follows filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn on an odyssey through Vietnam to Que Son, where her husband was killed. It is a journey in search of the truth about war and its legacy, eloquently chronicled and woven together with the stories of widows from both sides of the American-Vietnam war. The result is a profoundly moving examination of the impact of war over time.

 

 

 

Water Copyright © 2005 Mongrel Media

Water is the final film in a trilogy (after Fire and Earth) by Toronto-based filmmaker, Deepa Mehta. Set in 1938 Colonial India, against Mahatma Gandhi’s rise to power, the story begins when eight-year-old Chuyia is widowed and sent to a Varanasi ashram where Hindu widows must live in penitence. Chuyias feisty presence affects the lives of the other residents, including a young widow, who falls for a Gandhian idealist.

 

 

 

White Rainbow

White Rainbow is the story of four remarkable women and their journey to overcome the societal stigma and grim reality of widowhood.  Abandoned by their families, impoverished by a system that fails to recognize them, and denied even the most simple grace of wearing color, they find the resolve to transform their lives, and in doing so, the lives of Vrindavan's widows.

 

 



The Widow of Saint Pierre

A true tale set in 1850 on the isolated French-Canadian island of St. Pierre with Yugoslav director Emir Kustirica as an illiterate fisherman who brutally murders his ex-fishing captain in a night of drunken revelry. Sentenced to death, he cannot be killed until the remote island Governor imports a used guillotine, (the "widow") from the French government. Also starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche.

 

 
 

Living Death: Trauma of Widowhood in India

 

Living Death: Trauma of Widowhood in India
Edited by Dr. Mohini Giri

A unique and profound collection documenting the many aspects of severe and horrific discrimination against widows in India. If not facing literal death through the custom of Sati, widows in India are subjected to a living death in which they are deprived of basic human dignities on all fronts. The contributors to this volume are social scientists who have devoted their lives to the cause of women and children. The articles are both scholarly and passionate.

Not only does this work bring much needed focus to an understanding of the tragic status of the widow in India; it brings to our attention the dire need for continuing work on behalf of women and children's rights by all of us. This book is important reading for all who are concerned with human rights and the rights of women around the world.

 

 

Manless in Monclair book by Amy Edelman


Manless in Montclair
by Amy Edelman

A story of love, loss, and finding your place in the world, even when you find yourself in the last place you thought you’d ever be.

This humorous and heartwarming story of Isabel's quest to put her life back together follows her on a journey through the modern world of online dating, single parenthood, arranged dinner parties and speed dating, culminating in a story, with photo, in the New York Daily News. It is only then that Isabel realizes, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, she had what she was looking for all along.

 

 

A Widow's Walk

 

A Widow's Walk
by Marian Fontana

On September 11, 2001, Marian Fontana lost her husband, Dave, a firefighter from the elite Squad 1 in Brooklyn, in the World Trade Center attack. A Widow’s Walk begins that fateful morning, when Marian, a playwright and comedienne, became a widow, a single mother, and an unlikely activist.

 

 

Land Without Hats book

 

Land Without Hats
by Julie Mughal

Land Without Hats is a stirring and inspiring book by Julie Mughal which explores the difficulties faced by widows in the developing world and their courage in the face of adversity.

The book is now available
Read more in the promotional release (PDF)
Listen to an interview with Julie Mughal

 

  Widows Wear Silettos book

Widows Wear Stilettos
by Carole Brody Fleet

Using a fresh approach and putting a unique “twist” on her topics, Ms. Fleet is a popular motivational speaker and coach to those who have been touched by the pain and challenge of widowhood; regardless of age. With her own message of “What Now and What Next”, Ms. Fleet educates, motivates, inspires, enlightens and offers practical, emotional and even humorous guidance to the millions who have experienced loss, tragedy or a challenge in their lives.

 

 

Wake Up Call

 

What Remains:  A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love
by Carole Radziwill

What Remains is a vivid and haunting memoir about a girl from a working-class town who becomes an award-winning television producer and marries a prince, Anthony Radziwill, one of a long line of Polish royals and nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Carole Radziwill's story is part fairy tale, part tragedy. She tells both with great candor and wit.

 

 

Wake Up Call

 

Wake-Up Call
by Kristen Breitweiser

Wake-Up Call is the deeply personal, often shocking, and ultimately inspirational story of a woman whose world was shattered by terrorism-and who, with no husband by her side or father for her child, found the courage and strength to not only build a new life, but become one of the country's most outspoken activists and harshest critics of the current administration.

 

 

 

Love You Mean It
by Pattie Carrington, Julia Collins, Ann Hayes, and Claudia Gerbasi

In this shared memoir of loss and rebuilt lives, after each of their husbands died in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, the four authors recount the experiences of the ensuing years, during which time they support and encourage on another toward brave new futures.

ABC News 20/20 profile page and video.

 

 

 

Planet Widow
by Gloria Lenhart

Gloria's story begins at The End, the day of her husband Nick's funeral. But hers is really a tale of perseverance, of keeping her family together, of paying the bills with one paycheck instead of two, of placing one foot in front of the other, despite having been thrown into a bewildering, unfamiliar, and achingly lonely terrain.

Author interview

 

 

 

Praisesong for the Widow
by Paule Marshall

Avey Johnson is a black, middle-aged, middle-class widow, given to hats, gloves and pearls. She has long since put behind her the Harlem of her childhood. On a cruise to the Caribbean, she senses her life beginning to unravel and abandons her friends at the next port of call. What happens next is a beautiful adventure that provides Avey with the links to the culture and history she has so long disavowed.

 

  Life After Death
by Carol Muske-Dukes

After hearing this story, Boyd tells him, "I'd prefer you dead. Throw yourself out that window, for God's sake… You left her in the park? ... Do me a favor, Russell. Die". He does. Of heart failure the next morning. Afier Russell's death, Boyd begins to find out who he really was and what her own feelings about him really are. And so LIFE AFTER DEATH becomes a meditation on the border -- the unknown, undefined, powerful line -- between life and death. Boyd embarks on a journey of grief, self-reproach, and self-discovery so profound and surprising that her individual life in its quiet small town setting takes on mythic proportions. With a lonely undertaker, a very serious embalmer, a mother-in-law who refuses to face the truth, and her four-year-old daughter, Boyd begins to reclaim her life and to understand that endings often turn out to be beginnings.

 

 

 

The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion

Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking is about grieving for her husband fellow writer John Gregory Dunne. The couple had been married since 1964. Dunne died of a heart attack at the end of 2003. In her memoir, Didion contemplates how the rituals of daily life are fundamentally altered when her life's companion is taken from her. Her impressions, both sharply observed and utterly reasonable, form a picture of an intelligent woman grappling with her past and future.

 

 

 

A Widow, a Chihauhua and Harry Truman
by Mary Beth Crain

When Los Angeles writer Mary Beth Crain lost her beloved husband of only three years to cancer, she decided that the only sensible solution to overwhelming grief was to buy a chihuahua puppy and name him after the man she most admired: Harry S. Truman. The result is one of this summer's most unusual literary offerings--a poignant yet witty memoir about coping with loss that artfully balances the painful story of widowhood with a delightfully tongue-in-cheek chronicle of the joys and perils of first dog ownership, and an equally delightful portrait of Harry Truman, whose down-to-earth wisdom and unshakable optimism helped Crain to regain her faith in life.

"Whenever I hit a rough patch, I'd pick up a book about Harry and give myself a dose of what I called 'Extra-Strength Truman,'" says Crain. "It definitely worked better than Excedrin."

 

 

 

Dancing in my Nightgown
by Betty Auchard

Married when she was barely 19, Betty Auchard went straight from her parents’ home to her husband’s bed. When she loses Denny to cancer after almost 49 years of marriage, widowhood forces Betty to find out what she can do on her own. She has a lot to learn, having never been single before. These short, upbeat, inspiring stories tell us how this spunky septuagenarian survives—she decides to dance instead of sitting on the sidelines. Betty laughs and cries her way through grief and, ultimately, comes to see her situation as normal. “None of us is going to get out of this alive, and someone is always going to be left behind feeling sad.” Betty shares her journey of widowhood with poignancy and humor.

 

 

 

Grief Denied
by Pauline Laurent

When she was 22 years old and pregnant, Pauline Laurent was informed that her husband had been killed in the Vietnam War. In this direct and powerful memoir, she relates how the grief she suppressed for more than 20 years surfaced in the months leading up to her daughter's wedding, finally pushing her to explore her Grief Denied: A Vietnam Widow's Story, and to rekindle her faith in the simple power of joy and the possibility of happiness.

 

 

 

A World of Widows
by Margaret Owen


A World of Widows provides a global overview of the status of widowhood. Margaret Owen explores the process of becoming a widow; poverty and social security in the context of widowhood; differing laws and customs regarding widows’ inheritance; the situation of widows who remarry and issues of sexuality and health.

 

 

Good Grief
by Lolly Winston


At thirty-six, Sophie Stanton is widowed, alone, and starting over. Her husband has recently died from cancer and Sophie is finding it difficult to even brush her teeth, let alone hold down a job or find someone to fix the leak under her house. A lyrical, thoughtful, and achingly real story detailing Sophie's heartache and struggles. Lolly Winston shows the reader just how thin the veneer of a widow’s "normalness" can be and how deep grief can run.


   

                Characters

 

 

 

The Wife of BathThe Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer displayed the subjugation of women in the Renaissance times with his character, the Wife of Bath, who was married five times. Her first marriage took place at the age of twelve years old. She did not have a choice in the matter of marriage. She was married at the age of twelve because that was what she was told to do by her father. She left home and became a wife. Chaucer is able to use the status of the Wife of Bath as a widow because they had a little more independence. There are many statements made that show her feelings of entrapment within the society even though she was still allowed to attend to her dead husbands' lands and to her business of weaving. The widows during this time were expected to show their grief and anguish for their dead husbands as if it was their life's devotion.

 

 

Janie from Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston

Janie, the main character of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is widowed three times. After her second husband dies, the town expects her to be in mourning but Janie feels free of a heavy weight and begins to live her life her way. Although she is a wealthy widow, she still tends the store. She has plenty of suitors, but none she likes; she thinks they are boring and eager for her money. One day, while the whole town is away at a ball game, a stranger comes by the store and ends up joking and talking to Janie. The young man, whose name is Tea Cake, teaches her to play checkers and generally makes her feel like a regular person with a playful heart. Although Janie is very cautious of his attentions and their age difference, he keeps coming around and taking her out. He finally declares that he loves her and wants to marry her. They leave town, get married, and start a very different sort of life for Janie.

 

Self-Help
  Sandy Clendenen - How to Heal Grief book cover

How to Heal Grief
by Sandy Clendenen

Offering anecdotal views from herself and numerous interviewees, Sandy shares her experiences in healing grief, including feelings of being trapped, addictive behaviors, and tips on money matters in this new chapter of the widow's life.

"You Too Can Be Moved Beyond Grief."

 

 

The Healing Power of Grief

 

The Healing Power of Grief: The Journey Through Loss to Life and Laughter
by Gloria Lintermans and Marilyn Stolzman, Ph.D., L.M.F.T.

THE HEALING POWER OF GRIEF is based on the twenty- four months of Lintermans’ own bereavement after her husband’s death, interpreted and explained by Stolzman. The point is made that, ‘There is no way around grief…Real healing is a combination of time and educated grieving that truly allows you to embrace not only the continuation of your life but the joy that life offers.'

 

 

The Healing Power of Love

 

The Healing Power of Love: Transcending the Loss of a Spouse to New Love
by Gloria Lintermans and Marilyn Stolzman, Ph.D., L.M.F.T.

THE HEALING POWER OF LOVE is a unique, Award-Winning collection of heartwarming, intimate and candid stories of 24 widows and widowers who chronicled their continuing journey to loving new relationships. When the grief and mourning at the loss of a spouse begins to ebb, many people do not know how to deal with the problems of forming new relationships. The problems and pitfalls are not disguised and the stories are honestly told.

 

   
     
 
 

 

The Merry Widow
by Franz Lehár

Zeta is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Anna Glavari, the widow of a Pontevedrian banker who has left her 20 million. This news makes the Frenchmen Cascada and St. Brioche eager to meet her, which in turn makes Zeta and his councillors, Bogdanowitsch and Kromov, very worried: If the Widow marries a Frenchman, her millions will be lost to the Fatherland. Zeta is determined that Anna shall marry a Pontevedrian, and has selected Count Danilo as the ideal bridegroom, but Danilo has not yet appeared at the ball. He orders his assistant, Njegus, to locate Danilo, and goes off to be ready to greet the Widow. Anna sweeps into the ballroom and is surrounded by a group of hopeful French suitors. She reflects that she might be loved for her millions rather than for herself. Zeta pushes through the crowd of suitors, claims the first dance for himself, and escorts her into the ballroom.

 

 
 

Black Widow-Marvel Comics

 

Black Widow
by Marvel Comics

The sultry Black Widow first ensnared Marvel Comics readers in April of 1964. A deftly trained combatant, Russian secret agent Natasha Romanoff distinguished herself as one of the KGB's finest. Codenamed Black Widow, Natasha's covert missions brought her to New York, where her romance with the archer Hawkeye convinced her to renounce her country. Black Widow defected to the USA and became an occasional emissary of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Dio de Los Muertos

 

 
 

The Widow Keeper by

 

The Widow Keeper
by Carla Caletti

"The Widow Keeper is the woman in all of us who can help hold the Widow's story; a story from our past or a story that belongs to another woman. She is both the keeper of hope and part of a circle, seen or invisible, that accompanies the suffering and the healing in a widow's journey.

"I made this image for WidowSpeak's 365 Days of Widows campaign as my response to the stories of women becoming widows. My portrait offers a universal image of compassion and hope to all women." Carla Caletti (www.carlacaletti.com), March 2007

 

 

 

The Three Widows
by Mikki Majors

 

 

 

Widows Walk
by Anthony Sinclair