NOTES FROM PLANET WIDOW: Finding my way after loss by Gwen Suesse - Synopsis, Excerpt, Gwen's Thoughts

Loss has a way of altering everything at once. Familiar routines become unfamiliar. Silence takes on new meaning. Even ordinary moments can feel impossible to navigate. In Notes from Planet Widow, Gwen Suesse writes from inside that reality, offering an intimate and deeply human account of grief after the sudden death of her husband.

Rather than presenting formulas or promises of healing, the book explores what it means to live through disorientation one day at a time. Through reflections shaped by loneliness, fear, anger, memory, and unexpected moments of grace, Suesse examines how grief changes not only daily life, but also identity, relationships, and a person’s understanding of themselves.

The result is a thoughtful, compassionate work for readers searching not for easy reassurance, but for honesty, recognition, and the quiet possibility of finding steadier ground again.

EXCERPT

PLANET WIDOW. A desolate, hostile land. Bleak. Unfamiliar. Foreign. So far away until suddenly it was not; until, like Dorothy, picked up and deposited in Oz by a tornado, I found myself plunked down in a strange barren landscape, overwhelmed by unrecognizable terrain. I was awash in grief, heartache, and disorientation. How could I navigate this unknown land? How could I find my way forward when there was only half of me left to do that? 

All I could see was grayness, everywhere grayness, obscured with apparitions of death, visions of loss, and specters of being alone pockmarking the landscape. 

For Dorothy, there was a yellow brick road. I saw no roads of any kind or color. No way forward and no safe haven. I was consumed by desolation, loneliness, and cold fear. 

That stark, terrifying, hard landing happened years ago. In time the edges softened, the landscape came into focus, and colors reemerged. It is a strange truth that human beings are endlessly adaptable, even when we don’t want to be. We become inured to our situations in spite of ourselves. Surviving grief is as old as humankind. Life does go on. Somehow, we manage to “continue to continue,” as the Simon & Garfunkel song goes. 

Initial paralysis slowly morphedb into a truce of sorts with this new terrain. Seeing no alternative, I reluctantly embarked on a messy, disorganized, nonlinear process steeped in a brew of grief, heartache, self-doubt, and gut-wrenching loneliness. This process entailed false starts, full stops, unexpected roadblocks, unforeseeable hurdles, periodic rebellions, hand-wringing insecurities, agonizing uncertainties, and all other manner of obstacles and challenges. One day followed another. Somehow, life went on. 

What makes such transformation possible? Surely Grace—Grace, capital-G—that unmerited, mystical assistance that defies explanation, surely that was at work, carrying me when I could no longer carry myself, shifting my spirit when life had ebbed to its darkest moments, revealing glimmers of hope, difference, love, and possibility. 

Examples spring to mind: A friend showing up with a plastic produce bucket full of ice and a bottle of wine. Omnipresent friends—each helping in their own signature way—through phone calls or emails or sharing books or splitting wood for my wood stove. Nature stunning me with her resilience and outrageous beauty as dappled sun sparkled through the trees and onto the stream next to my favorite hiking path, reminding me of Light, Hope, and Buoyancy, hinting that despite everything, joy can still be found. Grace in plain sight alongside the grief, coaxing me inch by excruciating inch to stop staring at closed doors and turn to windows open with possibilities.

ABOUT GWEN

Gwen Suesse is a writer, certified life coach, and grief support practitioner whose work focuses on helping people navigate life after profound loss and transition. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Wagner College and a master’s degree in teaching from Harvard University, and is certified as a Martha Beck Life Coach, a Creative Grief Support Practitioner, and an administrator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®.

Her professional background spans education, choral conducting, human resources, coaching, and leadership roles in nonprofit and community organizations. She has led workshops and delivered keynote presentations at women’s conferences and charitable events, bringing a thoughtful, experience-based perspective to topics of identity, resilience, and personal growth.

Gwen is the award-winning author of Womansong: Balance and Harmony in a Feminine Key, which explores women’s search for balance and self-realization, and Notes from Planet Widow: Finding My Way After Loss, a deeply personal reflection on rebuilding life after unexpected loss.

She lives in Tryon, North Carolina, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Find out more at https://gwensuesseauthor.com

GWEN'S THOUGHTS

To Life, To Life, L’chaim

This morning my thoughts turn to the title of a wonderful little book by Ezra Bayda, Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts), because today is an anniversary of sorts for me, eliciting poignant memories of a “hard part." Almost nineteen years ago, my beloved husband got the diagnosis that would lead to his death only thirteen days later. I don’t live in the past, yet somehow anniversaries – all of them, even the hard ones – are remembered in our very bodies, asking for our quiet acknowledgment, and offering us a gift of sorts in return if we are honest enough to own up to what we are feeling.

Even now, all these years later, I am acutely aware of what I lost. But I am also aware of gains: how far I’ve come, and how much I have learned. I’m grateful that somehow I have been able to recognize the presence of ongoing grace revealing new paths, new friends, new opportunities, and new insights. I can’t know what trajectory my life might have taken had things gone differently, but I can be grateful for the abundant blessings I have received that have somehow sustained me, inch by inch, yard by yard, bringing me to the place where I am now.

And so, I say “yes to life”, hard parts and all. I cultivate trust, reminding myself that there is One who knows far better than I do what my path should be. As I mark this poignant day, I feel not only a measure of nostalgia, but also a quiet undergirding of peace and serenity. There is so much that we cannot know – but we can stand up in face of it all, with thankful hearts, and say “To Life, to Life, L’chaim!” 

Updated from https://act2lifecoachingblog.wordpress.com, August 4, 2017