WAXHAW, N.C. -- A Waxhaw woman who survived the unthinkable is trying to turn her personal tragedy into something others can benefit from. And you can help her do it.
“There’s daddy," says Ella Woods as she looks at pictures with her mom.
Ella is almost 2-years-old and knows her daddy’s picture well, though she never really got a chance to know him. Ella was just six months old when her father, a special forces soldier, was killed in a gunfight with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“We have a video she likes to watch of him speaking,” Elizabeth Woods told us.
They are home movies. Some of Brian Woods bathing his daughter, and a series of farewell messages to his new baby and his wife, recorded just days before he shipped out.
Widowed at 28, Elizabeth Woods says at first she was lost. She poured everything into a scrapbook, staying up until all hours working to get it done.
“It was therapeutic to be able to have something to focus on,” she said.
She'd been in this place, had grieved once before.
“Unfortunately I already had experience with knowing how to deal with it,” Elizabeth Woods said.
She and Brian lost their first son in childbirth.
“In a way, in a sad way, it prepared me for losing him because I knew this is what grief feels like," Elizabeth Woods said. "This is what happens, this is what your thoughts are like.”
Elizabeth Woods quickly realized what she wanted to do.
“I couldn't see myself sitting around after having these two things happen when I know there're other people out there suffering,” she said.
She created Soul Widows, a group that helps widows heal through companionship and special retreats.
“I want to give them a message of hope," she said. "I can honestly look at them and say I understand how you’re feeling right now and what you're suffering with.”
Widows have come from as far away as Alaska to attend her retreats, and now she's hoping to create a home base, a grief center in Charlotte.
Soul Widows is one of five finalists in a national IKEA competition for $100,000. It’s money Woods says she wants to use to create that center.
“I want to give women tools to redefine themselves in a new life. Even though I’ve experienced this, I’ve learned there are still gifts that life brings you,” Elizabeth Woods said.
If you’d like to help Woods win the competition, you can vote once a day until January 19. Just go to her website www.soulwidows.org.
