So What’s a Widow’s Blog? And What the Heck Does A Blogger Do?

So what’s a widow’s blog and what do bloggers do?

I get the question often, from friends, family, and followers. Blogging isn’t as new as you may think; it’s been around since the late 1990s and like most things internet, has been picking up speed ever since. Blog stands for “website log”, like a journal. The word can also be used as a verb, as in, “I’m blogging today”.

Blog defined by Wikipedia means “a regularly updated website or web page, typically run by one person or a small group that is written in an informal, conversational style. As a verb, to add new material to or regularly update a blog.”

 

 

 

 

Blogs can exist on a website, in an online news source, or even on Facebook or Pinterest.

I like to think of it as much like a newspaper or magazine. Columnists regularly wrote articles for a newspaper, picking different topics to talk about in different columns. Just as newspaper columnists tend to have a special area of interest or expertise. It’s no different with bloggers. It’s even true for the subsets of “widow bloggers”.

 

And just like columnists, we are paid for our time and efforts via ads in our “paper” or blog.  For many of us, for me, it’s a full-time job of many hours work. Unlike newspapers and most magazines, Widowlution doesn’t charge it’s readers to read.  We have bills to pay, just like traditional papers and magazines do. We are relying on advertisers and sponsors to keep it free to widows, but that all depends on our circulation numbers. The more “officially subscribed” readers we have, the stronger the draw for sponsors and advertisers. That’s why it’s so important that you actually subscribe or sign-up. It keeps us available to widows who are helped!

 

 

Here are some other examples of bloggers online for grievers.  We all have our specialty. One Fit Widow (http://www.onefitwidow.com/blog/ ) by Michelle Steinke-Baumgard focuses on physical fitness and training as a way to cope with grief and struggle.  Carolyn Caple Moor, of Modern Widows Clubs ( http://modernwidowsclub.blogspot.com/ ), casts her attention to her social clubs around the country for widows. Lynda Cheldelin Fell ( http://www.lyndafell.com/), a lovely lady I’m proud to call friend, publisher, and collaborator concentrates on the many grief books she has recently brought to market.

 

 

I like to be kind of the voice of “the angry widow”, addressing the many ancillary hurts, indignities, and injustices that befall recent (and not so recent) widows. We all discover, upon our loss that the loss is just the beginning of our problems. So many unexpected difficulties land on each of us that we never saw coming. But nobody talks about them out loud.  Am I angry all the time? Heck NO!  Who could live like that? Not me!

 

 

I do get angry, though, when I hear some of the stories from widows about the ridiculous bureaucracy problems, the cruelness of family members and the social shunning so many of us encounter. I certainly did.  I’m sure that all of us thought we would get some special consideration and tenderness in our time of grief. Sadly, that’s often not what happens. Sadly, most often, the offenders are offending because they know no better. Let’s say….they are pretty clueless. My recent books, with Lynda Cheldelin Fell, (Grief Diaries: Loss of a Spouse and Grief Diaries: How to Help the Newly Bereaved, available on this website in the store (https://widowlution.com/widow-books/) address in detail the missteps that well-meaning sympathizers make.

 

 

By talking about them, shedding light on them, I hope to educate, enlighten and change our culture for the better, when it comes to how we treat our widows and widowers. It is Biblical, after all, that we should be treated well. By talking about them, I hope to bring grief out of the closet. Grief is more taboo than sex….and isn’t that just ridiculous?

 

 

 

While you are here, be sure to take a look around the website at the many other blog posts with tips and strategies for all of us on the widowed path. If you enjoy them, be sure to subscribe to receive new posts directly into your email mailbox. It’s free to sign up and we guard your information as if it were our own, never selling or sharing your information.

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