Barbara Ballinger - Suddenly Single After 50: The Girlfriends Guide to Navigating Loss, Restoring Hope, and Rebuilding Your Life

Suddenly Single After 50

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ballinger, Barbara (Barbara B.) author. | Crane, Margaret, author.

Title: Suddenly single after 50 : the girlfriends' guide to navigating loss, restoring hope, and rebuilding your life / Barbara Ballinger and Margaret Crane.

Other titles: Suddenly single after fifty

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015045829 (print) | LCCN 2015047600 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442256521 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442256538 (electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Single women. | Single women--Life skills guides. | Self-actualization (Psychology)

Classification: LCC HQ800.2 .B355 2016 (print) | LCC HQ800.2 (ebook) | DDC 306.81/53--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045829

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For my daughters. Joanna and Lucy, my mother, Estelle, and my many female friends who surrounded me with friendship and love.

To my children, Adam, Remy and Tommy, and the memory of their father, Nolan Crane. I miss him every day.

This is our story and everywomans story of losing a spouse or life partner. Were two good friends and writing partners for more than 30 years who had parallel heartbreaking experiences. We both lost our spouses, one to divorce and the other to death. After we grievedcried, shut down, raged, and picked ourselves up, moving from almost inconsolable sadness to healthfulness and happiness againwe resolved to share our stories and what we each learned with others who are fifty-plus and navigating a new life after a spousal or partner loss.

There are many people we wish to thank. Friends and family encouraged us to write this book. There is such a need for this, was the typical response when we talked about our idea. When we started this project three years ago after saving hundreds of e-mails between us, spending hours coming up with ideas, titles, anecdotes, an outline, a first and then a second draft of our manuscript, friends and family enthusiastically offered to read portions or let us read chapters out loud to them.

Many ideas to fine tune chapters or add this and that came from various sources, and we would be remiss not to mention certain friends and family: Susan eagerly read multiple early versions and made countless suggestions verbally and in writing; Marilyn read many early chapters and later listened to more refined versions and gave us the green light; another friend and lawyer Lisa also approved content, including legalese; Barbaras younger daughter Lucy read the entire manuscript and gave us the nod; Margarets sister, Mary Anne, a tough and wise critic, offered her counsel and expertise and, most importantly, her approval; Debbie read two chapters and offered some edits and suggestions; business colleague Irina encouraged us from the get-go after reading some early chapters; and June read some chapters and the proposal and was very encouraging and helpful with her suggestions.

Special thanks also goes to our former literary agent Danielle Egan-Miller who read our proposal and said its good but not for me. Thank you for directing us to our wonderful literary agent Kelli Christenson. She offered both editing and/or literary agent help, and we said, Well take both! Kelli revised our proposal, made it shine, added some humor, and found us a publisher within a month of submitting the proposal and after only seven rejections, fewer she informed us than J. K. Rowling who received twelve before she found a home for Harry Potter. We only should see such success!

Also, thanks to the ever-present and often unheralded public libraries, where we did research. One of us even learned how to tweet cost free, with a very kind and patient trainer, Andrew Bono. Thanks as well to Alison Green who set up our weekly Weblog, www.lifelessonsat50plus.com, and gave us a tutorial in how to handle the mechanics of it.

Thanks as well to our publishers editor Suzanne Staszak-Silva and Laura Reiter, production editor. We couldnt have done it without your comments, suggestions, patience, and compliments to keep us going.

We want to thank those who fact-checked our information: Dr. Armin Ghobadi, assistant professor, medicine, Division of Oncology and Section of Bone Marrow Transplant at the Washington Universitys School of Medicine; Mueriel Carp, director of community relations and events, Siteman Cancer Center; Jim Goodwin, associate director of cancer news, Siteman Cancer Center; Sherry Delo and Judy Rubin, principals/partners at Plaza Advisory Group; and Cary Mogerman with the law firm Zerman Mogerman LLC.

Thanks to the therapists who helped us find our way: to Peggy, Denton, Mike, and Jan, and grief support group counselor, Mary.

To the many women who we talked to who have also lost their spouses or life partners to death or divorce and told us their stories, we thank you for your time and honesty. And finally, to all women who have lost a spouse or life partner and whose stories go untold, we hope youll continue to tell them in your own way on your own timetable while going through the healing processes and that youll use this book as a tool. Each of us has our own way of coping and moving on, but we can say unequivocally, there is life after loss.

As always, were grateful for the love, encouragement, and tolerance of all our family membersparents, kids, siblings, and cousinswho embraced this idea and our words, which brought back living through great sadness for all of us. Yet, they understood writing this book and our weekly blog have been part of our healing, and we hope will heal so many others. These are our writing legacies and true-life lessons.

Through it all, our new partners stood by our sides. Youve listened and read, toobelieved in us, cheered us on, offered critiques about the legal and financial parts of the book, and some of the emotional contentcontinue to love us, and make us laugh when humor is sorely needed to add levity. Quite simply, youve been instrumental in helping us find our way after being lost.

Barbara Ballinger and Margaret Crane, 2016

In this touching memoir/instruction manual, Barbara and Margaret give an honest look at what it means to navigate life after 50. Holding almost nothing back, the two share their deeply personal stories of suffering, denial, and lossall of us can relate. They touch on the pain, but do not dwell on it. They instead offer strategies to rise and move forward without preaching or judging.