My name is Kathy Scheffler and I am blessed to be the Executive Director of Widow Might.
On this page I share my thoughts with you. As a widow, it is my prayer that you will see yourself in these words and know that you are not the only one who feels this way.
Read Kathy’s bio
“Whew, I made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas, but wait why am I struggling with New Year’s Eve? This is unexpected!” As a widow, I anticipated that the major holidays would be tough that first year without Russ, but New Year’s Eve was a non-holiday for us. It was simply an evening snuggled in at home while temps outside dipped to subzero digits. With the work for the day completed, our festivities would begin by late afternoon. By 5pm it would be dark outside, so adorned in our finest comfy fleece attire, we would prepare our favorite comfort foods and polish off the last of the Christmas goodies, before any vows were made to eat healthier in the new year. The grazing would continue all evening while the two of us watched a movie, but we would be sure to pause it to catch the ball drop in New York City at 11pm (yes, being in a different time zone than the East Coast has its benefits). We often found ourselves tucked into bed exchanging a New Year’s kiss well before midnight.
So, what was it about this first New Year’s Eve without him that had me feeling unsettled? Russ had died on January 13th, so maybe it was the anticipation of the approaching first anniversary of his death hitting me. I had learned that the days leading up to a big day can be harder than the actual day itself, but it didn’t feel like that was quite it. It actually took me a few days into January to figure it out, but when I finally did it made complete sense. In the year that had just ended I had 13 days of memories with him, but now within this new year I would have no memories with him. I would look back upon this new year that was just beginning and remember many things that happened, hopefully things that would bring me much joy, but Russ would not be a part of any of them. This hurt at a deep soul level. There would be no pictures of him, no stories to share about him, no inside jokes just between the two of us that we would instantly recall simply by a look on each other’s faces. Time was undeniably moving forward and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for what would be many little life events without him. This threshold of a new year was one I found myself not going over without a fight; my heals firmly dug in, resisting it with every ounce of my being, even though the calendar had already turned over. But as is grief’s way, once I knew why I felt this way, it became easier to accept and by the latter half of January I was ready to embrace the possibilities of a new year. Grief continued to be my companion, but I was also able to find moments of joy in the new memories I was making that first new year.
Time has a way of pulling you forward and that is a good thing, but it’s also good to stop and mourn what is not as it should be, even years after the death of your husband. I pray that if you are struggling to move into 2026 this has brought some clarity to why you also might feel as I did. If you are ready to fully embrace 2026 and all its possibilities, I rejoice with you. And if you are somewhere in between, it’s perfectly normal to hold both the pain and the potential at the same time. No matter where you find yourself on the widowhood journey, all of us at Widow Might are honored that you have allowed us to walk alongside you.
