From the Dust Jacket

Married when she was barely 19, Betty Auchard went straight from her parents’ home to her husband’s bed. She raised four children, returned to college, taught art in public school, and became a grandmother, a published artist, a retiree, and then a widow.
 
When she loses her husband of 49 years to cancer, widowhood forces Betty to find out what she can do on her own. She has a lot to learn, having never been single before. She didn’t know how to put gas in her car. She was not freeway literate, nor had she ever used a computer. And she had never paid the bills by herself.
 
Facing her new responsibilities, this septuagenarian makes all kinds of mistakes. These short, upbeat, inspiring stories tell us how this spunky woman got through widowhood—she decided to dance instead of sitting on the sidelines. Betty laughs and cries her way through grief and ultimately comes to see her situation as normal. “None of us is going to get out of this alive, and someone is always going to be left behind feeling sad.”
 
Betty shares her journey of widowhood with poignancy and humor. As she drives her husband’s cremains home, she realizes that “it was the only time that he was a passenger in my car and didn’t say a word about my driving.” She places “guy” things around her bedroom so the plumber won’t realize that she lives alone. She sweats at the gym, flirts with gray-haired men, swims laps, and then dances tirelessly into the night.
 
Betty’s road to self-sufficiency is filled with laughter, creativity, connection, and transformation—and tears, self-doubt, and lonely nights. The last page doesn’t feel like an ending at all as she tells about online dating at age 70. So, really, it’s just the beginning.
 
Betty’s book was published when she was 75 years old. It will be available in Spanish late in 2009. A second memoir will be released early in 2010.