More than half of all women over 65 are widows — and 70 percent of those over 75 are widows. Indeed, nine out of 10 married women will, at one time in their lives, be widows. Incredibly, the average age of widowhood is 56.

Life for these singles becomes a mix of frustration, confusion, small successes, fear, loneliness, sadness and, to be sure, exhilaration in the very fact that they are managing. Life is not over; yet, it is different. If there is an object lesson at work here, it is that each of us who is a survivor of half a century or more has the capacity, and the strength, to once more turn the page and write a new chapter.