Kathleen Rehl has created a little gem of a book in Moving Forward on Your Own, A Financial Guide for Widows. She was widowed suddenly and shares with the reader the grief, blankness, and the symptoms of widowhood in an easy-to-read format with colored photographs, paintings and quotations. She tells of her own loss, then shares with the reader symptoms and stages they may go through and warns them against persons who will want to take advantage of a widow. She tells them of papers they must organize, steps they must take and phone calls they must make and leaves a place next to each step for a checkmark. Then Rehl, a certified financial planner, writes simple but understandable advice on how to manage finances alone and how to get on with your life.
This book is easy to read, easy to follow, well-organized and edited. Friends could easy give this to someone recently widowed and not be offensive. Actually, funeral homes might wish to carry a good supply of this book to give to clients.
This is not a book for libraries to carry as it has many spaces for people to write down financial and personal information. Moving Forward on Your Own covers well, and in detail, the many money issues that face a widow. It cossets the grieving in depth but also is a guide for getting life together after losing one's mate without being pushy and obnoxious which the grieving will not enjoy.