Just after I lost Jay years ago, I looked for a grief support group and was told none were meeting because it was June and the summer was getting into full swing and all the widows/widowers were out of town visiting children and grandchildren. I was dismayed that my particular circumstances, childless and truly alone after 36 years, were a rarity and not part of the mix for groups. Surely I was not the only childless widow?

I had to wait until September so I tried one-on-one therapy and I got a youngish woman who listened to my story and basically told me to straighten up and get over things. Then I discovered she was pregnant and I wondered why her specialty was grief counseling when she was at the beginning of discovery, at the beginning of adult life with its twists and turns and tragedies, and what in the world qualified her to understand anything at all, let alone the grief of a widow in her 60s. So I told her I was stopping the therapy. As most every therapist does when a client tells them they want to quit, she tried to talk me out of it. My friend, Susan, who is now a therapist herself, sided with her view. So I told Susan I wasn’t about to pay $85 for a session so this recently vested adult could find out where she had gone wrong. If therapists want an “exit intervention”, so to speak, then it should be free because sometimes it isn't about the patient not wanting to face things (the classic reason, according to therapists) as much as it has to do with their refining their skills so they don’t make the same mistakes with someone else. Sorry, I’m not about to pay for your training.

So I bit the bullet until September and joined a group that met under the sponsorship of the Jewish Family Counseling and Psychotherapy Service, although it was open to all. The group was indeed helpful because we were all in the same boat and our stories resonated with each other. We were not impatient, we listened and truly focused, and when it was our turn, we got the same respect and attention to detail. Friends try, but absorbing your pain is beyond most unless they have been through it and, even if some have, they do not want to “go back there”. We got along so well that after the formal sessions ended, we continued to meet for dinner once a month over the next two years and it was during this time that Ed and I got better acquainted.

Incidentally, it shames me to remember, we did omit one member, a man, who was so incredibly obnoxious that none of us wanted to see him ever again. So for him, I guess, the group was not a solution. You will understand if you'd been there while he dissed his late wife and boasted of his current conquests, all 30 years younger and, in our opinion, brain dead.

xx, Teal