The Year After Losing a Spouse

When a spouse dies, you lose more than a person.

You lose the daily routine, the shared jokes, and the one who knew you best. Nobody tells you what to do with the year that follows.

This guide gives you one week at a time to write about it: the first days, the quiet house, the memories and the guilt, money and paperwork, friends and family, and the slow work of figuring out who you are now.

How it works

• 52 weekly entries, each with four reflection prompts and room to write
• Six stretches that follow how a year of grief tends to go: The First Days, The Shape of the Absence, Who We Were, The Life That Has to Keep Going, Carrying Them Forward, and What Remains
• Start at week one, or start wherever you are. Skip what doesn't fit. Nobody else has to read it.

What's inside

• A short opening page for each stretch, with space to write where you are as it begins
• A date line in every week's heading, so you can see how far you've come
• A progress tracker for all 52 weeks
• A closing "Looking Back" page and a letter to yourself a year from now
• A Resources page at the front, including crisis lines and support for widowed people
• 128 pages, 6x9 inches

A good fit for personal reflection, for grief support groups, or as a thoughtful gift for someone in the first year after losing a husband, wife, or life partner.

Book 4 in The Year After series by Jameson Godspeed.

This is an independent publication and a personal reflection guide, not a substitute for professional mental health support. If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988. If you are experiencing prolonged depression or grief that feels unmanageable, please reach out to a licensed counselor or therapist.