Widowed Mom Quotes

“Less than two weeks ago, my husband was perfectly normal ... and now he has a brain tumor? How can this be our life?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Have I said yet that we were lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people, both near and far?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Still standing. I think this is a pretty good description of where I was at this point.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Glioblastoma is insidious. It spreads quickly and can spring up from a few cells to a full-fledged tumor that impacts daily living in a matter of weeks.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“The laptop, to which I had been chained for so many years of corporate work, was becoming my lifeline to the outside world.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Do I have what it takes to help my young family survive my husband's terminal illness?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“If your kid goes to a therapist weekly, a peer grief group monthly, and a grief camp for a few days in the summer—which would be a lot of grief work, by the way—there are still somewhere around three hundred days in the year where it’s all on you, the widowed parent, to figure out what to do.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“For the duration of Dennis's illness, I felt like Hester Prynne. I had the overwhelming sense that I was walking around with a giant 'FW' emblazoned on my shirt: "Future Widow.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“The question 'How are you' would usually throw me into an existential tailspin. It seems like such a simple question--but it would cause fits of uncertainty in me almost every time.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“I had no guidebook to tell me what to say to the kids--nor the time to find such a thing, if it even existed.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“No profound remarks are required. The simplest message--I'm here and I care--is all that's needed.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“I've been too tired to post much for a few days. Or maybe more precisely, too tired to think about what to post.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“It breaks my heart now to remember that Megan wanted to give Dennis the gift she made at school right away--in case Daddy dies before Christmas.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Thinking about how many years--decades, actually--I'd deferred my dream of learning to play the guitar, I find it remarkable that I finally took it up not long before Dennis got sick.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“If I don't own my own life, who else will?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Ask yourself this question:

If my life is the same five years from now as it is today, would I be OK with that?

If the answer is no--or especially if the answer is hell no--then now is the time to do something about it.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Someone mentioned that the Johnny Cash songs I was practicing were appropriate for Dennis. I guess that's lucky--because those are the only Johnny Cash songs I know.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“I wish I'd made time to check in with the kids more. To start a conversation. To let them know that it was OK to be sad, and OK to be worried.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Every child deserves a chance to thrive--even if their parent has died.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“I knew in my gut that the first time attending the Seattle Brain Cancer Walk would be in Dennis's memory--rather than in his honor.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice