Sally J.

Thank you for posting the name of this book. Sounds like one I need to find and buy 6 copies of. When my sweetheart Gary died suddenly, it didn't feel like I could survive - I almost didn't. And at the time I knew I was experiencing all my other losses too, although nobody I knew acknowledged that kind of thing except my dear Aunt Lottie who lived to be 97. When I asked her how she managed all her losses, how she got by, she said, "Mostly I'm okay, but sometimes they gang up on me."

I remember what one of my psych professors said in college. He said that there were studies done on people who had experienced great loss, like holocast survivors and those who had experienced myriad losses over time. Those studying the issue said that they went in with the premise that those people were better able to cope with loss than the rest of us. What they found was when new loss came along, the opposite was true. Each loss hit them hard - it all was cumulative, like you said, Sally.

But I do know one thing...one thing I've learned. I will survive. And I will become stronger, because I've decided this will be so. And so it is.