Dolorous

Today’s word is dolorous which is an adjective that means marked by, causing, or expressing grief or sorrow.

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She must have been about 11 or 12 when the first oil crisis in the U.S. occurred. When she looked back at that era of her life, a dolorous pall always seems to shade her view. There were no jobs for anyone in her neighborhood, the city or state; high gas prices had adversely effected all of the factories and businesses. Her father was laid off in the midst of this downturn and ultimately lost his job as a forklift operator, after the grocery store warehouse he had worked at for 20 years closed down; the union’s decision to strike over wages resulted in no wages at all. And to her dad’s self-incriminating embarrassment and shame, because he considered himself a failure as the family's breadwinner for allowing it to happen, her mother started working her first job outside their home – cleaning other people’s houses. Looking back there is no doubt that most of her major life choices were shaded, and not necessarily slightly, by all of the economic insecurities and fears of her youth.

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