Fighting Forward: A Widow's Journey from Loss to Life

by Jan Owen

“…loss is like a rock tossed into the middle of a placid pond: the waves go on and on, reaching far beyond the initial impact, touching places within my life I never foresaw or imagined. And it has left me forever altered.”

Jan Owen was widowed at the age of forty-eight. In this book of essays, she relates her story of the loss of her husband of thirty years while sharing honestly about her journey from crippling grief to a beautiful and hopeful life. Fighting Forward: A Widow’s Journey from Loss to Life bravely explores the heartaches and questions of widowhood and grief on a deeply personal level while offering us the hope and possibility of a new, even joyous, life. Jan encourages us to choose to live again even when we cannot see the future, to allow ourselves to be enlarged by our experience even as we sit in the dark. We must choose to keep marching on, fighting forward as we strive to build a new life full of hope and purpose.

150 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2017

About the author

Jan was born and raised in North Alabama, the place she continues to call home. She spent fifteen years serving as a music pastor. In 2009 she founded a non-profit organization to provide training for indigenous leaders. Through her work, she was able to spend time with people from many different countries and cultures, many of whom had experienced the heartache of genocide, war, poverty and loss. Currently, Jan describes herself as a "widow warrior", learning to fight forward and build a new life in the wake of grief. She uses her heart for others and passion for writing to encourage fellow widows and others struggling with grief and loss. A recent graduate of the University of Alabama, she is now enrolled in graduate school. Jan loves the beach, a good book, Alabama football, stand up paddle boarding, time to write and travel, her husband Matt and her three adult children.

Reviews

[Ryan Mulkowsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful work full of wisdom, courage, vulnerability, and stark honesty about the complex reality one’s experience with significant loss and indelible grief. Jan straightforwardly pulls no punches when she talks about her late husband, their relationship, the journey of the dying and death process, and the accompanying bereavement period. The book takes a two year look into Jan’s personal and raw thoughts about her grief journey and in these pages gleans much wisdom about her own experience and the experience of others. This book will make you feel a myriad of different emotions and the book draws you in deeply into a journey no one chooses to embark on but unfortunately many are thrusted into. Similar to Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking”, Jan goes in the depths of pain and suffering and yet also provides a treasured hope that even in the pit of human existence one can truly live, and love, again.