• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Widow's Voice

Widow's Voice

  • Soaring Spirits
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors
    • Kelley Lynn
    • Emily Vielhauer
    • Emma Pearson
    • Kathie Neff
    • Gary Ravitz
    • Victoria Helmly
    • Lisa Begin-Kruysman

How Lucky Are We?

Posted on: March 15, 2023 | Posted by: Kathie Neff

The Wonder of a Camp for Widowed People (the sequel)

It is truly a wonder that a camp for widowed people exists! In October 2021, after I attended my first camp, I wrote about it here. This is the sequel.

View from the last row of a conference room at Camp Widow.
Recently Widowed Workshop at Camp Widow San Diego, 2022 with Bobby Moss and Teresa Beshwate.

Camp Widow is a safe place created by widowed people for widowed people.

A place of help – hope – and healing.

 

What do widowed folk gain from attending camp?

  • Room to sort things out
  • A chance to let the fog of shock lift a bit
  • Resonance with other widowed people
  • Hope of getting through the grief process
  • Helpful tips on framing your experience

Some have said that it was at Camp Widow that they remembered how to laugh again.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Camp Widow in Tampa, Florida for my sixth camp. Attending Camp Widow helped me to dive into the healing I needed after losing my beloved Dan; to gain tips on navigating a new reality that was overwhelming; to find my way.

A person once said that GRIEF is like a debt. You can pay it now, or you can pay it later. But one day it will come due.

I knew about Camp Widow before I was widowed which gave me strong motivation to attend. Before being widowed, I did not realize the many subtle ways that grief impacts life. Coming to realize how to do the work that grief requires helped me immensely.

Additionally, each camp provides new ideas and solutions to bring to my daily life as a widow.

 

The Wonder of Peer Support.

Camp Widow is a place where most everyone has been widowed. All the presenters are widowed. This is fertile ground for peer support to flourish.

Peer support is the “process of giving and receiving encouragement and assistance to achieve long-term recovery.” Peer supporters “offer emotional support, share knowledge, teach skills, provide practical assistance, and connect people with resources, opportunities, communities of support, and other people” (Mead, 2003; Solomon, 2004).

Widows attend camp to sort out how to live life without our person next to us. Speaking to others who are further along in their grief, and hearing the stories of those who are somehow finding their way through it gives me a sense of hope that I can indeed do the work that grief invites me to.

coffee cup titled Badass Widow

The Wonder of Familiar Faces

Returning to camp offers the wonder of familiar faces and a chance to be there for the widowed folk who are arriving for the first time. Some of these widows and widowers meet online first and communicate through Soaring Spirit’s Widowed Village or their Pen Pal program. Others nourish their healing through meeting in person in Soaring Spirits Regional Groups and in other groups in their communities.

centerpiece with words reminding us that we do not leave our loved ones behind; we carry them with us.

The Wonder of Love Persevering

During camp the presenters model how love lives on. At each of the workshops the presenter introduces “their person” at the beginning of their presentation. It is easy to see the love they still carry for them.

The Wonder of Being

It can be a freeing experience that at Camp Widow everyone knows why you are there. Informally, throughout the four days, we introduce our partners to each other and/or show them their photo on the WELL LOVED display. We share stories and do not feel the need to explain ourselves. If we feel tearful, we let the tears fall. Kindness is present generously in all the spaces. Love flows generously, too, and without conditions.

WE NEED NOT BE ALONE IN OUR GRIEF

We are not alone. There are many ways that the Soaring Spirits community offers support and they are standing by, ready to welcome you if you decide to avail yourself of the love and support that is here for you.

You deserve it.

 

 

 

 

Categories: Widowed, Newly Widowed, Widowed and Healing, Widowed Milestones, Widowed Emotions

About Kathie Neff

Kathie Neff was widowed on April 15, 2021. She and her beloved husband, Dan, were high school sweethearts and enjoyed dancing and riding horses together. They lived in gratitude, hope and forgiveness for 50 years and nine months when Dan passed quietly late at night, surrounded by their seven children who, with Kathie, were caring for him in their family home.

Dan and Kathie have been a part of Camp Widow and Soaring Spirits International since its inception, as members of Michele Neff Hernandez’s cadre of helpers from the Neff family.

Kathie believes strongly in the strength and bond that is the gift of community and brings a heart of love for all who have been affected by death and dying.

Long live love. XO

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors

SSI Network

  • Soaring Spirits International
  • Camp Widow
  • Resilience Center
  • Soaring Spirits Gala
  • Widowed Village
  • Widowed Pen Pal Program
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Contact Info

Soaring Spirits International
2828 Cochran St. #194
Simi Valley, CA 93065

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 877-671-4071

Soaring Spirits International is a 501(c)3 Corporation EIN#: 38-3787893. Soaring Spirits International provides resources with no endorsement implied.

Copyright © 2023 Widow's Voice. All Rights Reserved.