How Do You Keep Going When Everyone Else Is Gone?

In my last article, I told you about the mother of a close friend — a woman who had just lost her husband suddenly to a heart attack. It was the kind of loss that drops into your life without warning and changes everything in an instant.

Before our friend could fly in from abroad, my husband and I went to visit her. I was expecting a full house. After all, it was the day after she’d lost her partner of many decades. She was making funeral arrangements. In my mind, I pictured casseroles on the counter, neighbors popping in, old friends gathering in the living room to hold her up.

But when we arrived, the house was quiet. Too quiet. There was no one there.

No comforting bustle, no familiar faces. Just her — a little stunned, a little lost — trying to manage it all on her own.

It hit me hard. This woman wasn’t just grieving her husband. She was grieving a life — a circle of friends that had slowly disappeared over the years. Some had passed on. Others had moved away. And now, in one of the m…