Loss of a Family Member

After Loss of a spouse

Find hope and support by reading, listening and watching stories of spouse loss and recovery.

Articles

  • The Alzheimer’s Experience, Part II: ‘He Was Such a Strong, Proud Man’

    Posted on September 5, 2017 - by Charles Patterson

    “Henry hasn’t been that bad,” Mrs Van Winkle reported to Dr Miller. “The only big problem is he wakes up at night and thinks it’s morning. Then he wakes me up to fix breakfast, and I can’t get back to sleep. I can’t understand why he thinks it’s morning when it’s still dark.” “I’ll prescribe a sleeping pill for him and see you both in a week to see how it works.” Next visit she came in alone, in tears. “The sleeping pill worked fine,” she sobbed, “but now he wets the bed.” “That only means the pill’s too strong. […]

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  • Spring: Memories of Love, a Chance for New Growth

    Posted on June 5, 2017 - by Tom Hallman

    “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” ― Pablo Neruda   Spring rain brings May flowers This was my partner Kim’s favorite time of year. I watch her child-like actions as the flowers bloom and the trees bud. She knew the names of them all, closing her eyes while taking a deep breath, naming each fragrance as she exhaled again, like a little one in a candy store. She was in awe and amazement as if it were her first time experiencing spring’s natural wonders. Quite the Gardener she was The flower beds tended […]

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  • The Blessing

    Posted on February 14, 2017 - by Cheryl Espinosa-Jones

    Not long before Joanne, my wife, died, she told me she expected me to love again. She said it would “not be right to waste all the lessons we’d learned,” and I was “too young” never to love again. When I replied that I couldn’t imagine any love ever being as good as ours, she replied, “maybe it will be better.” She was bedridden by then, disabled by multiple myeloma, and we spent most of our time in her room, talking, cuddling, and receiving visitors. This was after I’d taken a leave from my therapy practice so I had lots […]

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  • ‘Do You Cook for Yourself?’: How to Remember a Loving Husband

    Posted on January 7, 2017 - by Vivian Clecak

    “Do you cook for yourself?”  a new acquaintance asks me. I smile to myself. She has no idea. She has opened the door wide. I begin: “No, I do not cook. My husband did everything with joy and skill for the entire time of our marriage.” I have one subject that fills my soul: the loss of my husband two-plus years ago. But I have to be careful to make sure I catch the opening. If the listener zones out or judges me as bragging or fabricating, I cannot begin the story. The telling requires a soft landing, a space […]

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  • My Second Chapter: Life, Marriage, Family

    Posted on January 4, 2017 - by Michelle Jarvie

    Many people ask me, What’s it really like being re-married? My widow(er) friends want to know if I’m as happy as I was in my first marriage, if I compare my two husbands, why I’d risk being a widow again, and most importantly, if my new husband is understanding. Can you talk about James with him? Is he jealous? My other, non-widow, friends want to know if I’m happy and if I ever think about James anymore (that is, the friends who aren’t uncomfortable acknowledging his death).  If we throw my writing into the conversation: Do you think your articles about James […]

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  • Homesick This Summer: Widows Miss Their Men

    Posted on July 17, 2016 - by Luellen Hoffman

      A few days ago, I boarded a flight to St. Louis to visit my son who had recently moved there for his job.  As I sat in my seat, a white-haired lady walked down the aisle of the plane, and she had a big smile on her face, like she was glad to see me.  Her shirt was a light denim blue and it had little rhinestones in vertical lines, like sparkly tear drops, and her slacks were summer white.  She reminded me of a family friend. She sat down next to me and told me her name was […]

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  • Hope After the Loss of a Spouse

    Posted on May 27, 2016 - by Laurel D. Rund

    Artist, poet, and writer Laurel Diane Rund talks about finding hope once again after losing a spouse. Losing her husband took her on a journey to sorrow and personal transformation. According to a Chinese proverb, birds sing because they have a song—not an answer. Rund didn’t have any answers or know how to grieve. However, she knew intuitively that she had a song inside her. Overwhelmed with sadness, she wasn’t an “us” anymore after 42 years with her husband. She felt invisible, alone, and unattached. Death was a tough and unexpected teacher. If not now, when? That was a question […]

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  • Managing A Death Anniversary

    Posted on May 19, 2016 - by Susan Kaden

    After losing my husband to brain cancer last year, I was often warned about the one-year anniversary of losing a loved one. The Death Anniversary. I was no stranger to this feeling; I had lost my father when I was a kid and my mother passed away the year before last… except this time was different. This time it wasn’t just me I had to worry about, but how my kids would handle it too. As the day approached I experienced many different emotions, as did those around me. After coping with the day, I now have some wisdom to […]

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  • When Lupines Bloom, I Think of Him

    Posted on April 25, 2016 - by Elaine Mansfield

    My husband Vic and I planted many pounds of wildflower seeds in our fields over the years. Wild grasses devoured some of them, but the lupines thrived and self-seeded on broad hillsides. On the day of Vic’s death in June 2008, lupines bloomed with wild abandon, erupting from the earth with thousands of tall purple spikes. In 2009, after my first long year of grieving, the lupines sent up flower stalks again. They pushed their way through my numb despair. Life goes on, they insisted. Open your eyes. There is joy here. Wanting to share the beauty, I invited my […]

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  • Eight Years Later: My Five Stages Of Grief

    Posted on April 15, 2016 - by John Brooks

    The Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, wrote in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, about the various stages of grief that the bereaved know all too well. I’m sure many of us have heard this from our shrinks or bereavement groups. As I reflect back on the eight years since my 17-year-old daughter Casey’s suicide, my journey tracks remarkably closely to Kübler-Ross’ own writing working with the terminally ill. It all started one weekend in January, 2008. My wife Erika and I had a big fight with Casey over her mouthiness, rudeness and defiance. Parents fight with their teens, right? […]

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  • Spousal Loss: What Legacy of Loss Are You Passing on to Others?

    Posted on March 28, 2016 - by Vicki Panagotacos, PhD FT

    The loss of your life partner is especially complex to manage because the two of you functioned as a couple for so long. As a result, you are not only dealing with the loss of your partner, but also the loss of your sense of self that was constructed through your interactions. The question becomes: if you are no longer someone’s spouse or partner, then who are you? Psychotherapist Michael Miller refers to the process of relocating your single identity as intimate terrorism. Your relationship has been blown apart, and you are left to sift through the debris and extract […]

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  • Amy Florian: Finding Hope After the Loss of a Spouse

    Posted on March 23, 2016 - by Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

    The founder and CEO of Corgenius, Amy Florian, shares her thoughts on losing a spouse and finding hope in the aftermath. As a bereavement consultant, she pursued her career based on her own experience. Her husband, John, was killed in an accident when they were in their 20s. She was shocked that the world kept moving forward when she had her world torn apart. “I felt that John deserved five minutes of silence,” she recalls. There needed to be more recognition beyond family and friends. She took it upon herself to memorialize John. “I was determined to remember,” she says. […]

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  • Stephanie Groepper: Spouse Loss

    Posted on February 29, 2016 - by Heidi Horsley

    Losing a spouse is unexpected, since you see yourself growing old with this person. Dr. Heidi Horsley talks to Stephanie Groepper, a military widow. She’s a psychology student and the founder of Washington Warrior Widows, a non-profit for widows and widowers in Washington State. Groepper’s daughter is seven years old, and was only four months old when her partner died. In the military, it’s the loss of both a spouse and a lifestyle. As part of the military, it can be a sudden loss of your community. You’re given one year to move off base if you live in military […]

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  • Twelve Years Later: Love Really Is Both Sides Now

    Posted on February 20, 2016 - by Nancy Sharp

      February is anniversary month, when loss rises like nausea, climbing and swelling until the day itself, February 21. This is the day my first husband Brett died of a brain tumor, a medulloblastoma. He was witty, green-eyed, and just shy of his fortieth birthday. I was 37, and our twins, well, they were less than three years of age. Out daughter, Rebecca, and son, Casey, did not inherit Brett’s green eyes, but they do share his nose, innate kindness, and love of ATS: All Things Sweet. Ours is a not a recent loss. Brett died twelve years ago. That’s […]

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  • A Letter to Myself (as a New Widow)

    Posted on January 9, 2016 - by Michelle Jarvie

    I’ve always been a planner. When I was 8, I had Christmas presents wrapped and cards made in July. When I was 14, I researched all of my college options. When I was 19 and graduated college, I knew that 26 was going to be the best year of my life. After all, at 26, you’re deep into a career, are likely married, own your own home, and are financially stable and wise enough to provide for kids. When the plan sped up and I found and married my best friend at 22 years old, we decided to live in […]

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  • Grief and Healing: Against the Odds

    Posted on December 22, 2015 - by Peter Lichtenberg

    This is my story of being widowed at 25 and again at 55, and the deaths of my beloved wives—the first in November 1984 and the second in February 2014.  It’s not only that I lost both of these women to an early death, but also that these relationships were once-in-a-lifetime love affairs. Becky and Susan were everything to me: friend, colleague, lover, confidante; the person I most wanted to have fun with and the one I wanted beside me in a crisis. These grief experiences were so different and yet similar: one informed by the other, yet each a […]

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    Then and Now: The Roller Coaster of Being ‘Thankful’

    Posted on November 16, 2015 - by Michelle Jarvie

    THEN (2008) “Michelle? Are you there?” It was a good question. As the basket passes with blank cards – a tradition in our family for Thanksgiving – my arm seizes, refusing to lift itself and accept the basket. I know what is coming, and so the logical and emotional sides of my brain slip on their boxing gloves. I’m expected to write what I’m thankful for, throw the card back in the basket, and hear it read at the dinner table. I understand the importance of carrying on this tradition; I do, even though my beloved husband died just three […]

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    Letter to a Loved One, Twenty Years Later

    Posted on November 1, 2015 - by Cheryl Espinosa-Jones

    Dear Joanne, Today marks twenty years since I walked you over the threshold and out of your life on this earth. It feels like yesterday. It feels like 100 years ago. I cried last night at the benefit for the Breast Cancer Fund. It’s complicated when I cry like that. I’m crying because you are no longer bringing your good nature, your fierce determination and your insight into this life. I’m crying because so many others are going through what we went through (the room was full of them). I’m crying in wonder and disbelief at all the changes we […]

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    Spousal Loss: Spiritual and Physical Aspects of Loss

    Posted on September 25, 2015 - by Lyn Prashant

    Body work expert Dr. Lyn Prashant joins Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley on this special episode of The Grief Relief show. Prashant lost her husband at a young age—they were both in their mid-30s when he passed away. She had worked in the grief field for years, and says that “talk therapy” was the standard place for grieving people to handle their grief. When she lost her husband in 1984, she found that she really needed physical ways to relieve the grief. “Talking alone does not allow the body to release the accumulation of grief,” she says. Physical symptoms of […]

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    AmyJo Mattheis: Loss of Identity

    Posted on September 25, 2015 - by Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

    Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley talked with AmyJo Mattheis about losing your identity in grief. When Mattheis’ father died, she kept getting the feeling that “he’ll come back.” A former pastor and teacher at Pacific University in California, Mattheis blends her theological background with her professorship. She’s the author of Religion Made Me Fat, and is also a life coach. She walked down grief paths with numerous people as a pastor, but when it became her turn, it seemed like everything was new. “It was all my own,” she recalls, and had no map to get through it. She was […]

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    Diane Dettmann: Sudden Death of a Husband

    Posted on September 24, 2015 - by Diane Dettmann

    Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley welcome Diane Dettmann to The Open to Hope show. Dettmann lost her husband and literally wrote the book on it. She’s the author of Twenty-Eight Snow Angels: A Widow’s Story of Love, Loss and Renewal. It’s a memoir about the unexpected death of her husband, who was 54 when he passed away. Dettmann also contributes pieces to “Women’s Voices for Change,” and has had her work featured on numerous blogs, online media outlets and in print publications. Dettmann’s husband’s death was somewhat expected since he was born with a chronic lung condition, but he lived […]

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    The Way Love Feels Now

    Posted on September 18, 2015 - by Elaine Mansfield

    Two years after my husband Vic’s death, I drive home to the Finger Lakes of New York after visiting my son in North Carolina. I’m on familiar roads, but get lost three times—once by turning too soon, twice by driving past my exit. Maybe I’m distracted by listening to a CD, but the real issue is I’m on my way home after spending time with loving family. It’s a transition that grabs me by the throat and throws me to the ground. I pull in the driveway in fog and drizzle. It’s late in the day, and the dogs need […]

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    Anne M. Carson: Writing Poems about Death of Beloved

    Posted on September 2, 2015 - by Gloria Horsley

    Dr. Gloria Horsley interviews Anne M. Carson, a poet from Australia, at the 2015 Association for Death Education and Counseling conference. Carson lost her husband, which is what directed her latest work. However, she was a poet before this loss. In Australia, it’s a ten year apprenticeship to release a book of poetry, which Carson had already completed before her husband’s death. Her latest work, which she reads to Dr. Horsley, focuses on bereavement, her husband’s illness, and the fact that Western societies aren’t very “good” at grieving. Carson’s book of poetry, Removing the Kimono, features a middle section dedicated […]

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    Giving Back After Coping with a Loss with Dr. Janna Henning

    Posted on August 7, 2015 - by Heidi Horsley

    When Dr. Janna Henning experienced her own loss, it encouraged her to help others in similar situations heal. Dr. Henning talked with Dr. Heidi Horsley at the 2015 Association for Death Education and Counseling conference. Dr. Henning was in a car crash when she was 22, and literally experienced having her best friend die on top of her. Six years later, nearly to the day, she lost her partner in a bike-truck accident. “Having those two losses in my 20s I think really influenced my way of understanding (that) in some way the world doesn’t understand those losses.” When 20-somethings […]

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    Elaine Mansfield: Rituals after a Spouse-Loss

    Posted on July 25, 2015 - by Elaine Mansfield

    Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley interview Elaine Mansfield during this episode of the Open to Hope Foundation show. Mansfield is an Open to Hope author and Jungian student of over 40 years. After losing her husband, she embarked on a personal journey for hope, healing and recovery. She met her husband when she was 21 and he was 25. Both were students. “We sort of grew up together,” she said, recalling their Vietnam rallying during their years at Cornell. Avid yogis, meditators and psychology students, “we kind of grew together and created ourselves as adults together,” she says. Mansfield lost […]

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    The Far Territories of Grief

    Posted on July 19, 2015 - by Mark Liebenow

    I lay you down in the resting place. As for me, I will let my hair grow matted, put on a lion skin, and roam the steppe. — Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VIII In the early days of grief, it felt like I had been thrown into the far territories of human existence. No one knew what to say or do about my wife’s sudden death in her forties.  I found myself in an abandoned, wood-plank house in skeletal backbone mountains. Sorrow was the bare window through which I looked. All light had narrowed to this. Every morning the harsh light of […]

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  • ‘Lonely’ Not Powerful Enough Word to Describe Widowhood

    Posted on July 16, 2015 - by Catherine Tidd

    The Word ‘Lonely’ Not Strong Enough Loneliness in widowhood is not surprising.  I mean, even for the people who have never been through it, the loneliness of widows is a no-brainer.  But frankly, I think that lonely is not a strong enough word. There is a deep silence that comes with losing your spouse.  And it doesn’t matter if you’re standing in the middle of a crowded room; you will still notice it.  It’s the quiet that comes when you don’t have that familiar voice whispering in your ear at a wedding, “Can you believe she wore that?  I mean, what […]

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    Dawn Nargi and Roselyn Drake: Widows Helping Widows

    Posted on July 15, 2015 - by Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

    In this episode of The Open to Hope show, Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley talk with Dawn Nargi and Roselyn Drake about The W Connection. This organization began in 2009 “out of necessity,” says Nargi. She shares that in 2007, she and her husband became pregnant—their son was born two months premature. Shortly after bringing their son home, Nargi’s husband finally went to the doctor after experiencing pain throughout the pregnancy. He discovered that he had late stage cancer, and died just two months later. “We were on top of the world, and I became a new mom and widow […]

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    Nancy Sharp: Both Sides Now

    Posted on July 9, 2015 - by Heidi Horsley

    Nancy Sharp, author of Both Sides Now, talked to Dr. Heidi Horsley during the 2015 Association for Death Education and Counseling conference. The day Sharp gave birth to twins, she learned that her husband’s cancer had returned in full force. Holding both life and death in the same moment became the foundation of her birth. What she learned is that navigating the grayness of life requires the ability to hold dualities. Life and death, joy and sorrow, black and white. Ultimately, Sharp’s husband died of a brain tumor. She re-started from scratch, creating a new life with her twins in […]

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    Sheryl Sandberg Redefines Empathy in Eloquent Reflection on Grief

    Posted on June 20, 2015 - by Franklin Cook

    Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Sheryl Sandberg’s recent Facebook post (bit.ly/sandbergempathy), written a month after her husband died, is a wise reflection on the rawness of grief — and a testament to the resiliency of those who grieve. Her heart-rending story gives us a hundred gifts, perhaps the greatest of which has not as much to do with the extraordinary things she says as it has to do simply with the fact that she is able to stand before us, plain and real, and share: This is how it is for me. Where she takes her stand, she makes room […]

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    When Grief Subsides….What’s Beyond?

    Posted on March 20, 2015 - by Cindy Adams

    Grief a major part of a widow/widower’s life. Although everyone works through grief in their own way, there are still some similarities. I’d guess the majority of widow/widowers go through various stages of shock, denial, guilt, anger, depression, and hopefully acceptance. But every journey will also be unique. Once we work through our stages of grief and accept our loss, the grief begins to subside. Then we have to decide what we’re going to do with our life. There are endless possibilities of new goals and dreams for our future. Each one of us will have a different story to tell. Some widows remarry within a few […]

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    Episode 111: Living Mindfully with Linda Della Donna, Victoria Grinman and Bar Scott

    Posted on August 4, 2017 - by admin

    On This show Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley interview Linda Della Donna freelance writer, bereaved spouse of Ed and author of A Gift of Love: A Widow’s Journey.  The Second guest Victoria Grinman LCSW, adjunct faculty member of Columbia University and the owner of Growing Kind Minds.  She is an expert in healing trauma through Yoga. Victoria dedicates her work to her grandparents Raisa and Rubin Rozentsvit. The Show closes with singer, songwriter and author Bar Scott, bereaved mom of Forrest, singing More.

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    Episode 86: Spouse Loss with Dawn Jiosi, Sara and Caryl Fried Feldmann

    Posted on October 9, 2016 - by admin

    On this show Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley interviewed Dawn Jiosi, creator of the New Dawn that was inspired by the shattering life events of her husband’s death eight years ago. Our second guests were Caryl Fried Feldmann and her daughter Sara Feldmann Sheehan, Executive Producer of Mortal, a film inspired by the death of Caryl’s husband and Sara’s father Skip. A clip is shown of New Dawn, and the film Mortal.

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    Episode 83: Spouse Loss with Audrey Pellicano and Rabbi Jeffery Sirkman

    Posted on August 21, 2016 - by admin

    On this show Dr’s Gloria and Heidi Horsley interview bereaved spouses Audrey Pellicano. RN MS Health Counselor and educator, and Rabbi Jeffery Sirkman, Senior Rabbi of Larchmont Temple, regarding the challenges of lousing a spouse and how they have again found hope. Joining in the discussion of finding hope after the loss of a partner are Buddhist Monks Koshin Paley Ellison, and Robert Chodo Campbell. The show closes with Alan Pedersen, Executive Director of the Compassionate Friends singing I Chase Butterflies.  Music and lyrics by Alan Pedersen.

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    Episode 79: Spouse Loss, What About Dating?

    Posted on July 1, 2016 - by admin

    On this show Dr’s Gloria and Heidi Horsley interview three bereaved spouses; Dr. Joanne Moore, physical therapist and author of After the Loss of a Spouse: What’s Next?, comedian Carol Scibelli author of Poor Widow Me and her partner Mickey Bayard.  They discuss among other issues coping with spouse loss and dating.  The show will close with Alan Pedersen singing “Thanks For The Little While”.

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    Episode 70: Tuesday’s Children

    Posted on May 3, 2016 - by admin

    On this show Dr’s, Gloria and Heidi Horsley discuss with Eileen Lynch MSW the loss of both her husband and brother-in-law on September 11, 2001 in the Twin Towers. The second guest is Sallie Lynch Development Consultant for Tuesday’s Children, Sallie discusses the lessons learned regarding community healing and resilience. A Tuesday’s Children video clip is played.

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    Episode 46: Widow’s Helping Widows

    Posted on May 7, 2015 - by admin

    On this show Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley discuss with Dawn Nargi and Roselyn Drake how the loss of their husbands inspired them to help widows through The W Connection. The second guest will be Audrey Pellicano nurse, mother, wife and widow, who will give tips on how one can tap into the power of the mind in order to heal from loss, move beyond the pain and reignite feelings of hope. Audrey hosts Death Café at The Open Center of New York City and is the author of the “Six Secrets to Surviving Widowhood”.

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  • For the Ones Left Behind: A Guide for Helping Loved Ones After a Death

    Posted on May 23, 2016 - by Carla J Vagnini

    A death can shatter the lives of those left behind. Now, there are so many things to do. Who do you call? Where do you start? How can you help? Managing to survive in the aftermath of a loved one’s death is a daunting task. For the Ones Left Behind, A Guide for Helping Loved Ones after a Death was written with the intentions of assisting the countless who step forward or are called upon to provide support after a death. by Carla J. Vagnini Purchase Yours Today

  • Leaning into Love: A Spiritual Journey Through Grief

    Posted on September 13, 2015 - by Elaine Mansfield

    Elaine Mansfield’s memoir, Leaning into Love: A Spiritual Journey Through Grief, won the Gold Medal 2015 IPPY (Independent Publisher’s Book Award) Award Winner for Aging/Death & Dying. Leaning into Love captures the heart—from the extraordinary closeness of Elaine’s marriage to how she and her husband Vic transform their struggle with cancer and despair into a conscious relationship with mortality. After Vic’s death, Elaine leans into her ongoing love as grief leads her through emotional and spiritual depths on a journey into her new life. Elaine writes with an intimate connection to nature and a spiritual perspective that reflects over forty […]

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