The First Year: Coping with Widowhood relates one woman's journey through grief and out the other side to a new life. When Vennie Anderson's husband Wendell died in 1997 after a brief illness, she was stunned and nearly overcome with devastating grief. At times she feared she was losing her mind. Desperate for a way to cope with her feelings, she began writing in a blank journal book. Writing stream-of-consciousness, she poured her grief onto the pages without regard for style or punctuation. Unplanned, she filled in the last page of the journal exactly one year and a day after her husband died. Accompanied by a foreword, prologue, and epilogue, The First Year: Coping with Widowhood is that journal, exactly as she wrote the original. Not a feel-good or a how-to book, it's a book filled with raw pain, but also with hope and growth. Included is a brief list of the author's suggestions for additional resources for coping with grief. Every person's journey through grief is unique; however, those dealing with recent loss and grief will be able to identify and take comfort in knowing the terrible, exhausting work of grief does diminish with time. Life after loss is possible. Joy and real happiness are possible.