Saturday, September 6, 2008
Why I chose this topic?
To begin at the beginning, both of my grandparents were widowers by the time I was four and now that I am just a little bit older and understand more how painful losing your spouse can be I am interested in researching how persons learn to cope or not cope with the loss of their spouse. I want to research what society does to offer help to these persons and what social workers in general can do. Also, recently, and for the first time in my very long career of two years, I at this time have four persons in my group therapy that have become widows in the past year. Some tragic circumstances involved and some natural deaths, but all are suffering from the loss and are reaching out for help. Hopefully my research into this subject will help me and my social working buddies be helpful from here on out.
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5 comments:
Hey Davey,
I am very happy that you are writing about this topic because I could really use some insight. My grandfather died in 2005, unexpectedly, and left my grandmother alone. They had been together for so long and were still very much in love when he died that it left her absolutely devastated. I recently moved in with her and am starting to see the impact his death actually had on her. People always say the loss gets better with time but I am starting to realize that the loss of your spouse does not get better, instead in time you get more used to life without them there. It is a very hard situation to watch someone go through and I cannot wait to read your blogs for the remainder of the semester and get some added understanding of what they are actually going through so I will be better equipped to help her and others as well.
Your topic reminds me of a group I had at Elder Services in Spokane, Washington. Some in the group were widowers and not very successful at it. There are successful widowers and unsuccessful ones. Working with those men helped me understand something about companionship in the later years. I would have hoped it made me more sensitive to my own father's needs when my mother died, but he remarried so soon after she died and he was/is a famous womanizer - I had a difficult time summoning warm regards.
After my mom died, my older sister needed care, I moved back down here into the family home, my father was living with his new wife, and the house was full of children again. Occasionally, we would get an interesting phone message, slightly coded, from the Grey Wolves on the prowl for the Silver Foxes. Apparently, it was a group of older men stalking a group of older woman. It seemed so childish - so ridiculous, but the messages sounded like these fellows were having a good time hunting and somehow word leaked to them about where these women were, exact location and times. Go figure.
Hey Davey,
My paternal grandmother was widow. She expressed at times that she was lonely and wanted a companion, but never wanted to remarry because she stated it was not right to remarry. She was impacted a whole lot about my grandfathers death. She talked and looked at pictures of him all the time. This topic will help understand how people in their late adulthood find ways to cope.
Thank you for your comments. It was very interesting because reading these comments was like reviewing my grandparents history; both of whom were widowers. My grandfather married very soon after losing his wife. He was not a womanizer but according to my mom he did not know how to survive without a wife.
My grandmother on the other hand refused to date. She would state often that she met and married the love of her life and would never marry again. She has many pictures of him all around and talks about him constantly.
I wanted to define widowhood and late adulthood in my blog this week and also share some basic statistics. I know that is not exciting but in order to apply our critical thinking skills we need to define the terms and know the facts. I found the following information in our text.
Widowhood is defined, in most cases, as the loss of someone with whom an individual has spent most of their life. Our text also points out that this sharing of life together becomes even more important in late adulthood when persons are no longer raising children and are often retired.
And our text defines late adulthood as starting at age 65 and continuing through the 85 and older range. The text also points out that many more persons are reaching late adulthood in today's society. Another term that needs to be defined is widow which is a woman who has lost her companion. A male that loses his companion is a widower. 2004 statistics calculate that there were four times as many widows as widowers. The statistics also share that 43% of women in late adulthood are widows. I knew that there were more widows than widowers but I had no idea of these particular statistics. The book points out that the death of a spouse can be the most stressful event a person has to suffer but I will discuss the effects of widowhood on late adulthood persons on my next blog.
My mother passed away, after a long illness, when my father was forty-eight. They had married right out of high school. After thiry years of marriage, my father had a hard time adjusting to being a widower. Even though he belonged to the church's single group, dated and even seriously considered remarriage to one lady friend, he never really recovered from losing my mother.
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