Exclusive Content:

What Is Maundy Thursday?—How to Celebrate During Holy Week

As we celebrate Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, you may start to wonder, what is Maundy Thursday? Three days before Easter, we come to Maundy Thursday. "Maundy" comes from the Latin word "mandatum," meaning command, order, or commission.

Abby & Brittany: Conjoined Twin Abby Hensel is Married!

They’re the most famous conjoined twins in the world, and now Abby Hensel, of the duo Abby and Brittany, is now married! 

Babysitter Knows Mom Is “Paranoid” After Her Baby’s Death—So She Texts Her This Picture

The 15-year-old needed to make a sandwich, but she didn't want to let the baby out of her sight. She was in quite the predicament.

The Wedding My Wife Never Made It To

When personal tragedy strikes, it is often our gut instinct to lash out with the groaning heart cry of God’s servant Job: “WHY??”

Why ME, God?

Why NOW?

Why would you give me all of this JUST to take it away?

The never-ending list of questions following that slippery-slope of a three-letter word couldn’t be more familiar to widower John Polo.

After losing his wife, Michelle, to a rare, aggressive form of cancer just two weeks before their wedding, he was admittedly a “bitter” man.


Better Not Bitter Widower

“I was bitter. I was really bitter,” wrote John in a blog post summarizing their tragic love story.

John says he fell “madly in love” with Michelle when they dated for a year in high school. After going their separate ways for almost a decade, the two reunited eight years later and planned to spend forever together, along with Michelle’s daughter.

But just two years after rekindling their romance, Michelle was diagnosed with a form of cancer so rare that only one case per year is reported in the ENTIRE world.

Michelle fought valiantly for the next two and a half years, but she sadly lost her battle with the ‘Big C’ on January 22, 2016.


Better Not Bitter Widower

John couldn’t help but dwell on the list of questions bombarding his brain as he watched the love of his life slip away before his very eyes:

“Why did this happen to us?”

Why did this happen to us right after we found our way back to each other?

Why was our future stolen away from us in the most callous of ways?”

But while he was by his wife’s bedside in hospice, John’s sister asked him a question that changed him forever:

“Would you rather have not gotten back together and found out years later that she died of this terrible disease?”

“That question profoundly changed me,” wrote John.

Suddenly the focus on his heartbreak shifted to focus on the gift that Michelle was to his life.

“It shook me to my core,” he explained. “It changed my heart. It changed my soul. In an instance, I was no longer bitter. I was better.”

Now, John is using his blog and Facebook page Better Not Bitter Widower to form a supportive community for the grieving.


Better Not Bitter Widower

Most importantly, he hopes to share his powerful journey from “bitter to better” that was fueled by his boundless love for his bride.

In a recent viral Facebook post regarding the wedding dress his wife never got to wear, John does just that:

“That’s my wife.

In her wedding dress.

A wedding dress that I never got to see her in.


Better Not Bitter Widower

We were married at the courthouse a few days before her first surgery was scheduled to take place.

We rushed there. To become man and wife.

Not knowing if she would make it out of the surgery alive.

After the cancer came back and she was terminal, we decided to plan a real wedding.

She didn’t make it to that real wedding.

She died two weeks before it was scheduled to take place.

I have so many regrets.

Not getting to see her walk down the aisle is atop that list.

But, she got that dress. Her dream dress.

She loved that dress SO much.

Kelsey Straeter
Kelsey Straeter
Kelsey is an editor at Outreach. She’s passionate about fear fighting, freedom writing, and the pursuit of excellence in the name of crucifying perfectionism. Glitter is her favorite color, 2nd only to pink, and 3rd only to pink glitter.

What Is Maundy Thursday?—How to Celebrate During Holy Week

As we celebrate Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, you may start to wonder, what is Maundy Thursday? Three days before Easter, we come to Maundy Thursday. "Maundy" comes from the Latin word "mandatum," meaning command, order, or commission.

Abby & Brittany: Conjoined Twin Abby Hensel is Married!

They’re the most famous conjoined twins in the world, and now Abby Hensel, of the duo Abby and Brittany, is now married! 

Babysitter Knows Mom Is “Paranoid” After Her Baby’s Death—So She Texts Her This Picture

The 15-year-old needed to make a sandwich, but she didn't want to let the baby out of her sight. She was in quite the predicament.