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There is a lot of online help for Widows and Widowers.

You can find any number of websites full of stuff, it is a very odd culture.

There are a lot of online forums.

I used to read them a lot. There are unifying themes that run through most of them.
So many people in so much pain.

I am lucky enough to be able to talk to people about it quite regularly, I think the cyberworld would rive me a bit mad but for some people it is all they have.
I sort of think that on the whole they deserve better.

For the most part, in my experience, if a bereavement website looks good it is generally a Dating website.

There seems to be money in dating in a way that there is not money in making sure people are ok.

That or it is a veil for someone trying to sell you something.

A lot of the charities that deal with bereavement have a serious decision as to wether to spend money on web development or on one to one contact with bereaved people.

In the end there is only so much you can write about bereavement and in actual fact it is almost always better to talk face to face.
I do find it odd that a simple google search for the recently bereaved man turns up so many Dictionary definitions, dating sites and opportunities to buy things.

And a repeating article written in the Guardian some years ago about a journalist and all the sex he had or was offered after he lost his wife.
That always seems to pop up.
The gist of the article is that apparently it is ok to sleep with an au pair if you are a widow.
This is the only time it is ok and you don’t have to have guilt.

That’s nice to know.

Anyhow I try not to look online any more.
I remember in the early days just going round and round the internet, looking and looking as if there was some kind of answer in there somewhere.

The awful thing is that the answers are out here and sadly they usually involve actually facing things.

I once read that the popularity in Cooking shows or Home Make-over shows on telly was not so much to do with people looking for inspiration as much as thinking that it would be nice if someone came and did that for them.
They were no more or less likely to pick up a whisk or a power drill than before.
Those shows were all about vicarious living and the fantasy of something lovely for nothing.

I think poking around on the internet is a bit like that.
Any answers captured in here still have to be liberated by action.

With this in mind I think it is not surprising that pushy websites selling self help books for Widowers exist.
They are keyed in to a certain kind of desperate internet searcher.

It is also why Widowers’ dating sites look quite swish, they are selling a promise of normality and another life.

The sites that actually have advice on them look a bit dowdy.

That’s because the advice is simple: You are going to have to deal with this.

The really useful Widower websites are all about reality.

Who wants to google for that?

Anyhow, tonight I went to a group where I had two cups of tea and three slices of cake with a variety of people who had been bereaved.

The Proles did an art workshop next door while we talked about cake, wine, cooking, after school clubs, work, cars, going out, the awful weather and the bloody, stupid, awfulness of people you love dying.

And we laughed a lot.

There is only so much you can do in front of a screen on your own.
Most of that is not real.

Probably best get out there and face it all.

Or do some more washing and lay the table for tomorrow.