Praises Smith Charities for aid to widows

This letter is so long overdue but no less heartfelt. What Smith Charities does for widows in local communities is remarkable.

Many have children and some do not. We all share a common bond: picking up the pieces of our lives after the death of a loved one. We have received your benefits since 2010.

Here is what that means to us and this is our story. On July 24, 2009, my husband passed away unexpectedly from double-lunged pneumonia. He was 52 years old. Our children were 6 and 8. He was a stay-at-home dad and the primary caregiver in our family. We were close. My kids were devastated.

Fast forward to July 2010. We received our check from your widows’ fund and at the same time were at a loss as to how to spend the approaching one-year anniversary of my husband’s death.

Times were tough, financially and emotionally, but we knew we would have this bit of extra money. It became an adventure. We brainstormed and decided we would take a trip to Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island, our favorite place to go as a family. We would ride the water slides and go to our favorite restaurant, Two Fish, that we always went to with their dad.

So here we are seven years later and this is the result … you guys have taken a horrible situation and a horrible memory, a date we thought we would always dread, and turned it into something we look forward to every year. That is absolutely incredible! Here’s to you, Smith Charities.

Barbara J. Plante

Northampton

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