How are modern widows handling the multifaceted challenges of reentering the dating scene and finding love anew? Two co-authors recently researched this question. They discovered that modern widows are approaching the process of finding love in uniquely modern ways.
Their book, Finding Love After Loss: A Relationship Roadmap for Widows, by Marti Benedetti and Mary A. Dempsey, will be released on October 11, 2021. It is now available for pre-order. (Learn more about the book and authors at deathdiduspart.com.)
I am especially excited about this book because I met Washington, DC, resident Mary A. Dempsey, one of the co-authors, at a writers’ conference. We were both, at the time, seeking a literary agent. After some trial and error, she and her co-author succeeded in finding an agent and landing a book deal—such a success story that I should be jealous, but I’m only glowing with happiness: happiness for her, and happiness knowing that book deals are, indeed, possible.
Plus, Dempsey is one of the best writers I have ever known personally. I have not read this forthcoming book, but I have read other writings by her, and she is at the top of the game. She is also one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met.
When I requested a few words from her about her forthcoming book, she graciously offered me the following:
“It’s been said that women grow more radical as they age. That’s exactly what my co-author and I found during interviews and research for our book, Finding Love After Loss: A Relationship Roadmap for Widows. If you want to know who’s thinking in unorthodox ways about courtship and love, watch the women—young and old—coming out of bereavement. They want romance but they don’t like the old rules. So they’re making up new ones. The results are imaginative, powerful and, yes, even revolutionary.”
Radical women! Unorthodox thinking! Love and romance! Rule breaking! What could be better?
I’m not a widow myself; but, as a divorcée, I suspect I may be able to relate to some of this. The second time around, you do things differently. That being said, I cannot claim to have any idea what it’s like to experience the passing of a spouse. That sounds unimaginably hard. I’ll have to read the book to learn more.
Are you growing more radical as you age?
