Widowed Parents

If you’d spotted us — four women in our 40s, laughing, chatting, and drinking wine — you’d be forgiven for assuming we were merely busy parents, stressed-out professionals, or middle-aged girlfriends enjoying a quick getaway from the demands of everyday life.

We were, in fact, all of those things.

We were also widows.

In that charming tasting room in the Bavarian-inspired village of Leavenworth, Washington, I think we shocked the sommelier when, by way of making conversation, she inquired how we knew one another. The only answer we could muster was an unthinkable one: that each of our young husbands had died, leaving us widowed in our 30s and 40s to raise our grieving kids alone.

When You’re Parenting Alone

Since you’re reading this, I’m going to guess that you, too, have experienced the unimaginable: you’ve lost your spouse or partner, and now you’re parenting solo.

I don’t know if you’re a mom or a dad, if your kids are young or if they’re teens, if your loss was sudden and unexpected, or if it came after a long and difficult illness. But I do know this: widowed parenting is hard.

I’m so sorry you’re living this nightmare.

Being a young widow can be lonely and isolating. I frequently hear from listeners of “The Widowed Parent Podcast” that they don’t know anyone else in their neighborhood, school community, or personal circle who is widowed and now raising their kids or teens alone.

Sadly, however, there are a lot of us. Far too many, in fact.

Young and Widowed

Judi’s House in Denver, which prepares the annual Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, estimated in 2023 that one in 12 young people in the United States will lose a parent or sibling before they turn 18. Parent loss, it turns out, accounts for most of that number — so that’s an awful lot of kids with a dead parent. Most of these kids will have a surviving parent, too — and that parent is you.

And — it’s me.

Until my husband, Dennis, died when our kids were 9 and 11, I didn’t know many younger widowed people. Sure, there was the mom whose husband died when our boys were in third grade together. I didn’t know her well at the time, but I went to the funeral, and I dropped off a casserole when it was my turn on the meal train.

Then there was the woman whose husband died shortly after my son joined her son’s Scout troop. But her kid was much older than mine, and we were brand new to the group, so I’d never met her. There was also my across-the-street neighbor — but her husband had died years earlier, before I met her, and somehow the topic of her dead husband never came up when we bumped into each other at our mailboxes.

Feeling Lost as a Parent

After my husband’s death, I felt completely lost as a parent. I didn’t know how to do this job — a job which I hadn’t signed up for. Up to that point, my parenting experience had consisted primarily of “typical” kid issues — potty training, homework-wrangling, sibling rivalry, and the like — and I knew absolutely nothing about parenting grieving kids.

Perhaps that’s where you’re coming from too.

In fact, I’d wager that most of us who end up as widowed parents don’t have any background or training in this area. We didn’t get degrees in childhood psychology, develop expertise in grief and loss, or grow up with the devastation of being grieving children ourselves.

How then do we learn what we need to know?

Importance of Community

My own awareness of the importance of community for grieving people started when yet another neighbor, whose own husband had died five years earlier, reached out and introduced herself when Dennis was diagnosed with glioblastoma—an incredibly aggressive form of brain cancer with a single-digit survival rate. We walked a lot, and we talked a lot. Her presence and perspective were invaluable to me.

If you’re not lucky enough — if we can even call it “lucky” — to have a widowed parent living across the street from you, another just around the corner, and a few others within a stone’s throw, as I did, all is not lost. There are many other ways to tap into a community of people who “get it”—starting with the Widowed Parent Institute’s first initiative: “Widowed Parents Unite: 52 Tips to Get Through the First Year, from One Widowed Parent to Another.”

“Widowed Parents Unite” is a collection of reflections and tips from 48 widowed parents around the globe. The stories you’ll find in its pages are offered in the spirit of reaching out a hand across time and distance to offer support and encouragement from each of us — the “seasoned” widowed parents who have contributed their wisdom to this book — to you, a newer widowed parent walking this path that none of us wishes we were on.

‘You are Not Alone’

When I interview guests for my podcast, I always ask at the end: “If you could say one thing to widowed parents, what would it be?”

It’s amazing how often the response is some variation of this essential message: “You are not alone.”

I hope you’ll see in the pages of “Widowed Parents Unite” that you also are not alone.

And then, you may want to consider taking another step: finding ways to move from feeling a little less alone to actually being a little less alone.

Following are a few ideas to help you do just that.

Attend Camp Widow

No, it’s not camping. Not even close. It’s more like a few days away with hundreds of your new widowed friends, connecting, listening to incredible speakers, attending workshops, and generally feeling a lot less alone. There’s dancing, and yes, even laughing. My first time attending Camp Widow was amazing; I can’t wait to go back.

Find Local Grief Support

Many communities have grief centers or programs, which generally include groups for various ages of kids, including teens, and often they have groups for young adults, parents, and other adults as well. Some of the larger centers even have groups for specific types of loss, such as suicide, Covid, or cancer. They may have weekly or monthly groups, family nights, or grief camps. Some also offer individual or family sessions with counselors specializing in grief. Check out the National Alliance for Children’s Grief to find a program near you.

Seek Out Other Widowed People 

Not all support must be formal in nature. Sometimes what you need is a group of widowed pals who just kind of “get it.” What matters is that you’re in the trenches of widowed parenting together, trying to figure out how to make sense of it all. Once you find a widow buddy or two, set an intention of getting together on a regular basis. Pick something easy, informal, and dare I say fun.

If none of these ideas for connecting with other widowed people feels feasible right now, I’d encourage you to keep taking smaller steps on your own, at home, in whatever pockets of time you can manage. There are many terrific grief-related memoirs and podcasts (including “The Widowed Parent Podcast”), and reading or listening to these can be a great way to feel less alone.

I hope that these tips will provide some small measure of comfort and help you feel ever-so-slightly less alone. Your fellow widowed parents are rooting for you.

From one widowed parent to another: you’ve got this.

Adapted from “Widowed Parents Unite: 52 Tips to Get Through the First Year, from One Widowed Parent to Another,” by Jenny Lisk, published October 24, 2023, by Bluhen Books. Excerpt reprinted with permission from Bluhen Books. All rights reserved.

Read more from Jenny: The Day My Old Life Ended – Open to Hope