Good grief, how those widows bounce back

Marketers may assume the typical elderly widow is too bereft over her husband’s death to be in the mood for much shopping. They should guess again. “Six months after the death of their spouses, nearly half of older widows had few symptoms of grief,” according to a University of Michigan study. Just 16 percent of the widows studied by the researchers were categorized as “chronic grievers,” still depressed 18 months after the death of the spouse.