Advice please if anyone can.

I know how you feel. =) Especially with being widowed at a young age, I've encountered that awkward silence a time or two! The only thing I've learned to do is to fit it into the conversation and then breeze right over it. People feel like they need to give condolences, but we all know that it's not at all necessary! If anything, I use it as an opportunity to share the MANY ways that God has blessed me!

Yes, I understand how you feel as well. I always have said I'm a widow. I have gotten different responces from it. Some surprizing, like women grabbing my arm and saying "you poor thing", for the most part people are generally respectful. I just didn't feel right saying single, it just felt like more than that. It was hard going from married to widow in my mind, I still say widow. But now I feel widow that's single, it's taken some time to get there. In a few months it will be four years that I've been a widow, so I've had these years to come to terms with it all. (Great outlook on it Manna " I use it as an opportunity to share the MANY ways that God has blessed me!) That's wonderful.

I can understand the way you feel too. I think a lot of times it catches people
off guard and they look at their own lives. Death is still something that a lot of
people fear. I have experienced the same awkward moments, but I think that it
is good for us to acknowledge the lost of our loved one, the awkward moment
will pass.