Jess

sj85, I was so very moved by your story. It breaks my heart. I am so sad that you have been through what you have and are going through what you are going through now. I am thankful you have posted and I hope sincerely you continue to because you put into words what many feel or have felt so eloquently. We are here to listen.

I figured out how to do this. It now simply says member.

Oh no, I didn't read it as that as a push to rush at all. Please continue thinking out loud about features so we know what we need to try to figure out. That way too if there is an existing way, we can let you know or someone else that has figured it out can help the others as has been happening. I do want to pop in and let people know they are heard about what they are asking for, though.

To echo Maureen, don't let it feel daunting to start a new thread. Put something out there and people will respond. I felt the same way when I first joined and finally figured oh screw it, I need to talk about what I am feeling. I am glad I did because without fail, someone was always there to make me feel supported and even when there was no advice, I always knew I was heard. We all need each other.

We are trying to figure out the sidebar stuff for location at least (I may be wrong, but I think you had to click on profiles to see date of death of spouse, it is just that the join date used to be a more accurate estimate of the amount of time one had spent on their journey) but I did want to point out if you click on the little "new" icon next to the post, it will take you right to the first new post since your last view. I hope that helps!

You did it. It doesn't matter how the day went, you got through it. I hope you take some time to congratulate yourself on living through such a tough year. Big hugs.

Good point!

Last night's dinner was a piece of cheese and microwave peas as that was all the food I had in the house- unless you can call rolls in the pantry so moldy they were turning a bit black food.

Bluemoon15, I am so glad you found us but am so sorry that you had to. As far as a typical response to such a devastating loss, there is no such thing, but plenty of people have shared the same feelings and thoughts you are having, myself included. Our losses are all unique and so is our grief. It is so hard when the shock starts to wear off. I think at 7.5 months outs, I am still shedding layers of it and processing the emotions as they come. I am wishing you much peace and comfort.

I hope no one minds if I add a few things here. First and foremost, the single biggest thing of value to me when I joined YWBB was seeing the people that had made it years through this journey. People that could say it gets better that were speaking from actual, tangible experience and not platitudes from people in my every day life that had not been through what I am going through. From the veterans, I gained the gift of hope. From that gift of hope, I gained optimism. I cannot think of a better gift to receive as a newly widowed person than those things and I have absolutely no way of providing that to anyone that comes here. That has been stripped away and that sucks more than I have the words to express. So, is there a point to posting and do veteran members have value? You better believe it. I am hopeful many of you that know way better than I do stick around, at least for a little while if your heart is not in it, to give the rest of us hope. My bigger hope is that maybe a chance to inspire people new to the journey and connect with some long lost names that have come back up will get your heart into it and that you will feel part of the community many of you founded, perpetuated, and ensured flourished for people like me to find even years after your journey began. From day one of my YWBB experience, you have all unknowingly been my mentors. Thank you. As for moderation, the approach is designed to be hands off but stepping in when blatant abuse, threats, etc. exist. On YWBB, I remember certain times members were being publicly harassed and people were begging for them to be banned but there was nothing anyone could do but beg for an admin to do something and instead simply end up waiting for the troll to get bored. That does not make make people feel safe nor comfortable, and the goal is to have a safe community, not a censored community. The primary role of the moderator through the transition is to get parts of the board rolling and be there to answer questions and bring concerns to our attention if they are voiced. I have no interest whatsoever in being the thought police. This group has had years of experience being self-moderated and 99.99999% of the time it worked out great. The problem was that there was no recourse whatsoever for that .00001%, and those were the times that caused people to feel unsafe. The admins cannot be here every day, so knowing who to get a hold of during that .00001% is important. Is this system the one that will stay in place? Honestly, I have no idea. This board is going to adapt with the needs of the community it serves. Otherwise, what is the point and why bother? The only reason I am an admin is I had the unique qualification of being willing to damn the torpedoes and do something quickly, some may call that stupidity. That qualification is less and less relevant as the community does what it does best- supports itself. I am utterly amazed and impressed at how everyone has pulled together. It would be mind blowing if I didn't already know what a widow(er) can do. Jess

Sandy, I am so sorry for your loss and that you had to find us but I am so glad you did. I am now at about 7.5 months out and I have a hard time even remembering 12 days as I look back. The shock was a thick haze over everything. There is nothing wrong or unusual about what you are feeling. You are having a normal reaction to a completely abnormal situation. Please take care of yourself and feel what you need to feel when you need to feel it. You will get through this.

Thank you all for working so hard to get the word out. Who else needs a spa day?

That is really wonderful to wake up and read this morning. Congrats to you both!

Karma has been disabled. I agree with importing a like feature again. To me liking gives you the option to say "Hey, I hear you, I acknowledge you, but don't have anything specifically to add". Adding the feature requires a plug in/mod, so we are seeing how stable it is before seeing if it makes sense for us.

My favorite picture of Joe and I: A more silly one: And the tattoo he was most proud of:

I'm not sure we are going to keep that feature. I'm don't know that it serves any useful purpose and someone that is smited may have their feelings hurt. However, before any final decision is made if anyone wants me to smite them to feel like a bad ass I am happy to do so.

Hi everyone, I hope you will all indulge me in a rather long post. I think it is fair to say that last Friday morning, there's a sizable segment of you that probably had no idea who I am. I am still pretty new to this widow thing, currently about 7.5 months in. However, as you all have experienced, time becomes elastic during widowhood and at times it feels like it took two years to live the past 7.5 months. Less than a week after my husband died, I found YWBB through a Google search. I registered for an account immediately and 5 days later, it was approved. I instantly felt I was among friends and fellow travelers. I often attribute anything I do that passes for healthy grieving to that early support, whether I was actively posting or just reading and nodding. It is hard for me to imagine life without that outlet because it has been there for nearly all of my journey. When YWBB was suddenly shut down, I felt gut punched. I thought about this precious community and knew it was not something I could personally afford to lose. So I did a crazy thing and set up a new one to round us up and give people that felt as I did that were perhaps not connected through shared phone numbers, Facebook accounts, or shared email addresses a place to go immediately. It breaks my heart that we are losing so much of of our history. For me, the legacy threads that stood the test of years were those that brought me the most comfort because I could see the full journey. It is frankly unacceptable that this history is gone, but if there is anything all of us have experience with it is learning to live with and eventually accept the unacceptable. I just hate that we keep having to do this. I want everyone to know I did not make the decision to uproot us to this home lightly. I did so because this more than the other board, could be a permanent home for us. I know some of you are concerned this may not be our last stop. I don't blame you one bit. I assure you that I firmly believe it is. This space was provided to us by a YWBB member (Please let me know if I can give you credit so I can edit this with your name) that saw the writing on the wall and wanted to be prepared. It was essentially turnkey. If I did not firmly believe in the permanence of this space, I never would have made the big ask for all of you to come along to this board. Again, I know a lot of you do not know me enough to know how much stock to put in that statement, but all I can assure you is I am someone that right now NEEDS to have this community around and I am committed to doing anything I need to do to make sure that happens. I also want everyone to know a main focus of mine is making sure we can easily pass the reins to a new generation as our time and ability to be present changes in the future, as let's face it, it inevitably will. You have my commitment that this will be done. This forum is the best fit for such a plan to eventually be enacted. So, what do we need to do now to build this community and rise out of the ashes? First, keep spreading the word to members of our community. Several of you have made an incredible effort to do this and you have my sincere thanks. Those that I am aware of that made a YWBB PM sprint are canadiangirl, AC, Stargazer74, and SieOma. You all rock. I know that more of you have been hitting up FB groups, etc. and you all have my thanks as well. I have a feeling if I listed out everyone that has been spreading the word this post would take so much scrolling. Also, a big thanks to BlueBird for getting us listed at One Fit Widow. Next, post, post, and post some more. Was there a thread at YWBB that meant something to you? Start it here. Have an idea for a new thread? Make it. As time goes by, this place will start filling up with experience, wisdom, stories, encouragement, and even laughter because although we are losing our history, we are not losing our present and who WE are. In the coming days and weeks, getting this forum to show in search engine results is going to be a huge priority. If the newly widowed cannot find us, this community will not survive. I am not an expert in this area, but I am in talks with people that are much smarter than me in these areas to make sure we are doing everything we can to be found by those that sadly need to find us the most. So, wrapping up that post that was probably a bit too long, I just want to thank this community not only for being there for me at the YWBB but also for taking a leap of faith and following us all here. I do not underestimate the responsibility the team and I have to ensure this is a permanent home for support. I would like to thank all of the moderators for volunteering their time. I know I have many more offers to help out that I am still wading through, so please do not feel I do not value your offer. In the meantime, all of our PM boxes are available to you, though at times we may get a bit flooded so have patience if it takes a while to get back to you. If I missed your message on Proboards, I sincerely apologize. Things have been a bit nuts! Thank you all! Jess (Jezzy)

I'm in the Phoenix area.

I can claim no responsibility for the awesome logo. I want to give credit where credit is due for this space and the logo, but want to make sure the member is okay with receiving heap tons of praise and thanks first.

I'm Jess. I was married to my husband, Joe, for almost 8 years. He was never in bad health. Shortly before midnight on July 25th, 2014, he kissed me goodnight as he was going to sleep downstairs to watch the 2 month old puppy we had adopted the day before. I brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas, and laid down to go to sleep. A couple minutes later, I heard strange noises and went downstairs to investigate and found he was having a seizure. He had never had a seizure before so while I knew the situation was bad and called 911, I didn't have any concept it could be fatal. His heart stopped on the ambulance on the way to the hospital and they were not able to bring him back. He died shortly after midnight on July 26, 2014, my father's birthday, at the age of 34. While I have accepted he is gone and is not coming back, some days it is still so hard to wrap my mind around. He was kind, wonderful man that always made me laugh.

Hi DonnaP, We are looking into this and will let everyone know when we have a better idea if we can improve the readability as we have gotten quite a bit of feedback on this. When we have an update, we will pass it along.