Margaret Nyman, a wife of nearly forty years and the mother of seven children, was widowed after her husband's sudden illness and death in 2009. Blogging about her feelings helped her work through the heart-wrenching pain and encouraged thousands of readers, many of them reeling from the loss of their own mates. Hope for an Aching Heart and Prayers for a Widow's Heart were written out of her desire to help other widows and respond to their cries.