The Road Not Taken
Debbie Widhalm
This book is filled with tales from women who have faced big challenges, whether it’s dealing with painful losses, family struggles, feeling ignored, or going through emotional or physical hurt. These women have faced moments when life seemed too hard, yet each one found a way to keep going and grow through it.
In these pages, you’ll read about battles with mental, emotional, and physical abuse. For some, this meant dealing with unkind words or actions from people who were supposed to care for them. For others, it was feeling like their voice wasn’t heard or that they didn’t matter. They faced feelings of invisibility and sadness, but they kept pushing forward, finding ways to feel valued and understood.
Many of these women also talk about the grief of losing a loved one. Loss is a heavy and heartbreaking experience, whether it comes through an unexpected event, a long illness, or any other situation. The pain can feel too big to handle, and the sadness can be overwhelming. But these stories show how, even in the toughest moments, people can slowly start to heal and remember the happy times with those they loved.
The book also dives into family challenges. Family life can be complicated, with its own unique struggles, from financial hardships to conflicts and even illness. Sometimes, families have hard times that make relationships feel strained. But each woman in this book shares how she faced these issues and how her family challenges helped her grow, learn, and become stronger.
Courage Under Siege isn’t just a book of sad stories; it’s a collection of stories about finding hope and courage. It’s about learning that even when life knocks us down, we have the power to stand back up. Each woman’s journey through difficulty shows how strength and resilience can help us find meaning and joy after pain.
Reading these stories may help you feel less alone, especially if you’ve been through something similar. You might see yourself in these stories and feel inspired by the courage and bravery of others who have faced tough times and found new purpose.
Debbie Widhalm
views life as a journey of lessons and choices. Her deep empathy and ability to love comes with a price. In her life she has often chosen the road not taken by others because of a determined drive within to become the best version of herself. This walk has required courage and more often than not been a lonely journey that required her to speak up when it wasn’t popular.
She personally knows deep pain, abuse, rejection, abandonment, the feeling of being unloved and unwanted, grief and loss, so well.
She has channeled those feelings and made a choice to love on purpose in life, thus creating deep empathy for all mankind and creatures.
Her career as a Burn Nurse for 20 years gave plenty of opportunity to express this empathy. She continues to be a student in the study death and dying and the afterlife. She holds a certificate as a Grief Recovery Specialist.
She loves to create beauty from ashes! She has spent the last four years in her back yard digging in the dirt, planting, building structures and watering the beauty with her tears as she walked through a time of unimaginable loss. In this space a Zen oasis was created, where you can feel God walking.
Her writings express the emotions well!
She has written a chapter in Courage Under Siege volume 7, talking about how she believes our early days in infancy can predetermine our course throughout our life. She also gives hope that we can change the course of our life at any given time, through our choices. In this chapter she talks about sexual abuse and how she confronted it head on with the most powerful man in her life, setting herself free. She believes we are never too old to change and there is always hope.
If you would like to read more of her writings, No More Silence, by Debbie Widhalm, will be out December 2024. This is her Memoir, and is full of graphic stories of survival and moving on in life, beyond the tears!
She has also written a children’s book to be published by early Spring 2025, called, The Story of Tops the Chinese Goose. This is a wonderful story that teaches about inclusion, love and grief. It will be a series book that you won’t want to miss reading. This series will teach about emotions, love and the ability to love everyone in spite of their differences.
Be on the lookout as this author continues to share her work.
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