After I lost my husband to death in February 2014, the pain, hopelessness, and ambiguity of what the next phase of my life and my teenage daughter was going to be was all that filled my thoughts. I pondered on life without my friend, for more than 35 years, a devoted husband and father to my daughter. I constantly asked God for guidance as a widow and a single parent. My parents were the first to teach me that it is more rewarding to give than to receive. As a child, I witnessed my parents bring into our home; orphans, widows, assisting the most impoverished in the community, and insisted on giving basic education to orphans and those who wanted to go to school, but did not have the means to achieve that goal, while providing for seven biological children of their own. As I was driving back from the gym one evening, I tuned into Joel Osteen’s radio, where he was preaching about mourning the death of a loved one. His message was; “Why don’t you do something you know that your loved one would be proud of in his honor, like helping those in need; assisting the orphans; work with a charity; or just start a Charitable Foundation and the list went on instead of mourning indefinitely.”
