Some of my most brilliant ideas come when I'm mentoring widows one on one privately. Something magical happens in those minutes and hours.
This week, I found myself joting down a quick concept of what widowed women need upon becoming newly unmarried- a list called the 'Widow Task Force'... WTF.
I howled laughing when I saw the acronym for this. But of course...what the f*ck is so appropriate.
A simple list to connect to in order to figure out how to deal with all those 'items' left behind when someone dies. Firearms, tools, clothes, cars, storage units, offices, boats, collectibles, sporting equipment etc...
We were discussing how freaking hard it is to actually decipher and evaluate everything, then sell and pass along all of late husbands and partners "THINGS" he used to manage. Those collectibles, usables and hidden things in basements, storage units, offices and garages everywhere to be found 'afterwards'.
I can attest to this after not knowing what to do with an over 5000 comic book collection and numerous architectural sketches and professional drawings when my late husband, Chad, died in 2000.
I carried those boxes from different areas of my home, finding closets to stash those heavy boxes and in order not to see them everyday....but I soon had to face them when I realized that I would need to move into another home in which they would not fit.
That was in year six for me.
The urgency was REAL.
And PAINFUL.
I wanted to honor those hallowed items, but the truth was, I knew nothing on how to value or sell them. It was a full time job for me. And me alone.
Wouldn't it have been amazing to have 'someone' or 'some list' to go to and connect with that I could trust and rely on from a WTF list? It sure would have made this process a whole lot easier.
As I talked further with my mentoring client, I advised her to look at Autotrader or even FB Marketplace for the RV and Seadoo Jetski. Rarely do women know how to sell legally responsible and such big mechanical toys!! Her research is cut out for her and time consuming. Lord have mercy!!!!
If you have any suggestions, let me know. I just think that if there was some kind of vetted national directory for widows to tap into - a Widow Task Force, it would be more managable and take a little of the unessesary pain in facing the actual and emotional work of untangling all the details of letting go of all that it collected when alive. I mean, every widow has to go through this, we each have the wisdom to share.
Hang in there ladies....
Love conquers all,
Carolyn Moor