Many people these days want to help and they just don't know how or where they can make a difference. Enter Soaring Spirits...let me tell you why supporting the organization that supported me in ways no one else could as a young widow and mother is SO important.

I was widowed suddenly at the age of 36. Vince died from sudden death due to a heart condition while also being active duty in the military for 18 years. At the time our boys were 2 & 7. Both of my boys, now 12 & 17, have the same heart condition. 

Soaring Spirits holds Camp Widow, essentially a conference for widowed people to gather resources and find peer support. I decided to go to this camp in 2012, about 1.5 years after Vince died. I was completely stuck and void of people who could possibly understand what I was going through. When I got there I almost left because I couldn't even say the word "widow", much less hear it over and over. I didn't identify as one in my profound loss. I couldn't see past the heavy weight and cloud of the traumatic loss and ongoing loss and fear the boys diagnoses brought. It was in this space, Day 1, I found others just like me! I even met multiple other women....really just like me, who had lost their husbands to the same thing and who had children also diagnosed. Whenever I would tell my story I would be ushered to meet someone else "just like me" too. It was an unforgettable experience and I still have contact with those women to this day.

Every year I kept going back to Camp, never really knowing what I needed that year until I was there. It kept me going, in a positive way, and really taught me that hope does matter in light of all other things. I knew I needed to give back. I was called to. I knew it in my heart and soul that my widowed peeps and all those that came after me needed this organization as a lifeline. 

I started volunteering year after year in the bookstore and was so lucky to meet so many people. I became the camp widow bookstore manager a few years ago and continue to love seeing the transformation, from my seat in the store, as the people walk in day one to register on Friday to who they become on Sunday morning...completely transformed with hope and peer support. 

I now work for this amazing organization and am honored and blessed to continue to give in so many different ways to so many different people. It continues to be a source of resilience for me in my journey. The organization can't provide what it needs to, to so many people all over the world, especially during a pandemic without the support of people like you reading this. If you can, please consider joining me on team, Hearts for Hope, and help me raise money to continue to help so many people facing one of the hardest things they will ever do, survive the death of their partner.