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WHAT IS WIDOWED PERSONS SERVICE?

Widowed Persons Service of Greater Bridgeport, Inc. (WPS) offers one-to-one support and guidance to the newly widowed in the greater Bridgeport area by trained volunteers, men & women who have experienced the death of a spouse and have adjusted to their new lives.

Our volunteers offer you empathy as you see old friendships change, and encounter new and unfamiliar obstacles and opportunities. WPS volunteers have walked many of these paths themselves. No one knows what it's like to lose a spouse.... except those who have. We have, and we've learned to live again. You can too!!

WPS is a local, non-profit organization co-sponsored by AARP (Grief & Loss Programs) and by FSW, a local social service organization in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 



BEREAVEMENT & BEYOND
Whether a spouse's death is anticipated, or whether it comes unexpectedly, the event of death is always sudden. In the beat of a heart, a wife becomes a widow, a husband, a widower.

Unlike with the death of a spouse, most of life's great changes give us time to prepare. As with the birth of a baby or with the purchase of a new home we have a chance to prepare.

Not so with death. You are "widowed." The word doesn't fit. You try to shrug it off like an oversized wrap. You are frightened and confused by this ambiguous new status.

"Widow? Widower? No, no. Not me."

Being widowed turns your self-image upside down. You may feel dizzy, off center, without direction. You may need to reset your compass. You need time to adjust. It is a role you've never practiced playing and you don't know your part. How does a widowed person act? What does one wear? What does one say?

The transition from wife to widow, husband to widower, is a very real, painful, and personal phenomenon. The trauma of trying to adjust to an indefinable role while besieged iwth a multitude of urgent questions and decisions seems overwhelming.

Because you've had no preparation for what you're going through, and because you've no one to guide you through this most difficult time of adjustment, it may well seem that your agony will never end.

But, with support, with permission to grieve, and with patience and effort, it will. There is much to go through, a whole mourning process in which to participate. But an end is waiting.
 
Widowed Persons Service
of Greater Bridgeport, Inc.
475 Clinton Ave., Bridgeport, CT 06605 		   phone: 203.368.4291
E-mail: mail@wpsbpt.org
All pages Copyright ©2004 Widowed Persons Service of Greater Bridgeport, Inc.