All of us are probably guilty of thinking we can avoid the natural stages of life that include dying. Even worse, we shun talking or thinking about our ultimate end. Indeed, Americans have a downright unhealthy attitude toward aging and the life cycle. We think we’re supposed to stay young and invincible.

It’s often only when we lose someone we’ve lived with for many years that we come to grips with our mortality. By then we could be paralyzed with grief and depression and feel unable to cope because we’ve not prepared ourselves adequately in advance. We know, because we’ve been there.

Craig Battrick and I have both lost spouses to debilitating illness and disease. In the spirit of helping others who will go down that road, we authored “Rebuilding Your Life After the Death of Your Spouse: Experiences and Tips from Two Survivors.”

The little 80-page book is intensely personal, as we chronicle the stages of illness and death our late spouses endured. As much as possible, we tried to not make this guide a downer, even though one reader said she was reduced to tears at one point, even though she is a young woman.

Yes, death is a downer. There is a vacuum in our hearts and our houses where a former spouse resided. But this book stresses the hope for a new start at the end of the experience. It also gives both the male and female griever’s perspective, because this loss of a spouse experience is different for all of us, with subtle but noticeable differences according to gender.

As I spent most of my career writing a weekly humor column for a newspaper, there are elements of humor amidst the pathos. The book contains excerpts from a blog I began writing after my husband’s death, plus advice from friends who have experienced widowhood themselves. The practical tips include things like how Craig and I navigated the financial and paperwork burdens that accompany a mate’s death, how we tried to take care of ourselves and get through the predictable stages of grief and depression. Even how we tried to learn to cook for ourselves.

This personal chapter of two surviving spouses is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Rebuilding-Your-After-Death-Spouse/dp/153700008X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473084006&sr=8-1&keywords=Rebuilding+your+life+after+the+death+of+your+spouse.