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Gwen Suesse
Author
Notes from Planet Widow
Gwen Suesse, author
Planet Widow: Finding My Way After Loss is the story of how a grieving woman painstakingly found her way through the alien territory of widowhood. Life was rolling along largely in the way my husband and I expected it would. Ups and downs here and there, for sure, but basically on a mostly predictable trajectory. But on an August day I will never forget, our normalcy vaporized with the sudden death of my beloved husband. Boom! Without warning, I landed on Planet Widow, an utterly barren landscape with no roads, no buildings, no people, no trees, no anything in sight – only total desolation with mind-bending disorientation and soul-piercing heartache as my sole companions. I had no vision of what life could look like in such a place. Slowly, however—oh, so agonizingly slowly—a landscape began to take shape. Signposts came into focus to reveal a path forward. Insights built on each other to form a trail of breadcrumbs that I used to hold myself together as I learned a new way of being. Planet Widow is a story of rebirth, describing the trail of insights that knit themselves together to restore my sense of wholeness within an altered context. While I couldn’t totally eradicate grief, I could learn profound lessons from it. Finding the courage to be open to it as a fierce teacher, I slowly lived my way into a new realization of self that includes grief, transforming disorientation into grounding and a measure of peace.
Reviews
Following the death of her husband, Jack, author and life coach Suesse found herself navigating the alien landscape that she now describes as “Planet Widow.” Unsure how to escape the emotions and situations that were so incredibly foreign and overwhelming, she began to deal with this as she had with most turmoil in her life: by writing it down. As her striking first line suggests—“The fact that I am writing this introduction is proof that people can and do survive loss”—keeping extensive journals offered Suesse the opportunity to discover her place in this new landscape. Notes From Planet Widow documents her explorations as she faced grief and found it within herself to chart a course to someplace wholly new. She highlights key lessons and what it took to learn them, like how essential it is to assemble a team to help take on the new burdens she found herself facing, and the value of taking time to stop and fully feel your feelings, allowing body and mind to process the loss.

Excellent prose carries the reader through, rich in metaphor and symbolism help capture the mental state of the author as she navigates a grief that readers may not be intimately familiar with, but may relate to the grieving they have experienced. Suesse is especially engaging on the tricky topic of shifting one’s perspective while enduring grief, opening up to being curious about the future, all while still allowing yourself to be angry—and daring to analyze that anger’s true roots. In addition to her own practices and hard-won insights (“The first order of business is to stop negative momentum”), Suesse peppers in wisdom from all manner of philosophers and writers.

Ideal for people who are navigating profound loss, Notes From Planet Widow offers welcome comfort, polished writing, clear-eyed guidance, and—by its very existence—heartening proof that we do survive grief … and even can thrive in the wake.

Takeaway: Personal experience combines with selected wisdom to help anyone processing loss.

Comparable Titles: Kim Murdock’s Feeling Left Behind, Jennife Katz’s The Good Widow.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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