“If you learn from your suffering,
and really come to understand the lessons you were taught,
you might be able to help someone else
who is now in the phase you may have just completed.
Maybe that’s what it’s all about after all.”
--Source Unknown

I became a young widow on February 11, 1995. I was only 27-years-old. I had been with my beloved husband and best friend, Darren, for eight years, since my sophomore year in college. We had been married for just two years and had just moved into our new home two months earlier when he was tragically killed in an automobile accident with a friend at the wheel. Part of me died that day too, and I thought that my life was over.

During the early stages of my grief, I searched everywhere for a book written by another young widow. I wanted to know that someone else had walked the dark path of grief, and had made it out of this hell I was experiencing. I wanted to know if anyone else had ever felt the inner mental and emotional turmoil that totally consumed my existence. I needed to know for certain that my husband still existed in spirit somewhere. If he was no longer here, where was he? I felt I must have this unrelenting question answered.

Surely, I reasoned, some other woman had to have gone through this before me and had written about her experiences. The only books I found about widowhood were written by and for older widows. I found that they were filled with practical information which didn't relate to my situation. It definitely appeared that the younger widows were completely overlooked.

Also, none of these grief books answered the spiritual questions you inevitably face when you lose a loved one, such as “Is he in heaven now?” and “Is he okay?” I didn't want to believe that Darren had simply ceased to exist. It is a normal human desire to want to know what becomes of a loved one when they die. None of these grief books offered any information about life after death or spirit communication, which were topics I was now desperate to investigate. Before long, I realized that the book I so desperately sought did not exist.

Two years after Darren’s death, I remarried and started a family, but the hole in my heart remained. After years of searching for answers and after many life-altering experiences, along with some gentle nudging from the other side, I decided to write the book I never found. I finished the draft for the book in February of 2000, the same time I found out I was pregnant with my second child, and I put the book on the back burner.

I was eight months pregnant on September 11, 2001 as I watched the agony of those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks. For me, the most heart wrenching stories were those of the expectant mothers who were widowed that day. Grieving the loss of my husband was the most difficult thing I had ever experienced. Pregnancy, childbirth, and new motherhood was second. I couldn't imagine having to face both at once. My heart ached for these women, and I wanted to reach out to them. The young widowed mothers of 9/11 were my inspiration to publish this book. I felt the need to share what had taken me years to discover in the hope that this sharing might ease someone else’s pain.

While my story is written from the perspective of a young widow, this book offers hope and help to expedite healing for anyone who has ever grieved over the loss of a loved one and is looking for comfort and answers. If sharing my experiences can do this for just one person, then all of the pain that I relived during the writing process will have been worth it.

With Love and Blessings,

Laura Hirsch