Widow's Voice

The Gift of Camp Widow

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in San Diego once again!

 

The first Camp Widow showed up as “The First Annual National Conference on Widowhood.”  Take a moment and consider that we’re celebrating the 16th year of Camp Widow this coming weekend. Many more than sixteen camps have endured. Add to that Canada and Australia—Wow!  All major accomplishments that started with love and hope on the first “camp” in 2009 in San Diego, California.

Ad for the first National Conference on Widows, 2008.

 

 

 

This week I pulled all the blog posts featuring Camp Widow that I’ve written since 2021. I found eight posts, and in reviewing them, I circled key words that have impacted my personal journey through Camp Widow. The word cloud holding them is surely incomplete, but nonetheless mind blowing.

Words that describe the gifts of Camp Widow.

 

We show up.

We receive many gifts.

Widowed folk who came before us help make it happen.

 

Camp Widow has faithfully provided so many gifts over the past 16 years. I wonder what I’ll receive this time?

  • New friends
  • Longtime friends
  • Creative ways to re-create our lives as time keeps moving on
  • Tools and tricks
  • Remembering my first days from the new widows who will find us
  • Themes that extend the life of our time together
  • New ideas as yet unknown to us

Next move, packing!

 

Camp Widow 2024 suitcases.

 

See you next week with a report from San Diego!  Who’s going?!?

 

A Camp Widow badge with ribbons & buttons.

 

 

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