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.

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 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
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
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 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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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 Bath – The 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.

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 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: 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.