Kathie Lee Gifford on Her Crippling Loneliness: “You’ve Got to Make New Memories or the Old Ones Will Kill You”

Kathie Lee Gifford, 65, is going through some major life changes. Her mother died… her husband died… her children are now adults… she left her job at The Today Show…. and it’s all taking a toll on her.

Well, how could it NOT?

via Page Six:

“You battle different things as you get older, especially as a widow, you battle the loneliness when you lose a spouse,” she told AARP magazine. “It dawned on me the other day, I’m a widow, I’m an orphan, because my mother also passed, and I’m an empty nester all at the same time.”

“If you’re not careful, what you’ve lost in life can define you. It’s so much better to be defined by what you still have, it’s just healthier. I’m making big changes in my life because I need to, really big changes that are feeding my soul. Otherwise, despair sets in and loneliness can be crippling,” she said.

She said it’s important to stay focused on the present despite moments of immense heartache.

“I didn’t have to stay in this big house anymore,” she said of her home. “I found myself dealing with crippling loneliness. I had to make a move to someplace physically, and I had to make emotional moves and spiritual moves. You gotta make new memories or the old ones are going to kill you.”

Social gatherings, she says, became a struggle in the wake of her husband’s death.

“When you’re part of a couple, you don’t realize that the whole world is just made up of couples,” Gifford said. “And all of a sudden, you’re that odd number at a dinner party. You’re the fifth, seventh, ninth person at the table. They’re always making an adjustment for you.

“So I didn’t want to go out and go alone to things. I go to professional things alone, but nothing social. I just wasn’t comfortable. And I didn’t want people giving me that widow look. ‘Oh, how are you? Are you OK?”’ She continued.

Thank goodness for friends, though.