I watched in helpless agony as my beloved husband suffocated to death from a mistreated bee sting while we were vacationing in Italy. I returned to the US alone without my husband, the man I'd adored for nearly 30 years. I grieved and grieved. Nights and weekends were an endless water torture of loneliness. All the married women I had known suddenly shunned me--not wanting a young widow in their husbands' orbit. Wherever I went, all I saw were couples. Living in my isolated house in rural Dutche …