Category: Giving Support

  • WSN – Friends Seemingly Lost

    WSN – Friends Seemingly Lost

    WSN-MO: The Perfect Catch A few minutes with Dating and Relationship Coach, Christine Baumgartner Friends Seemingly Lost Among the many devastating changes that come with widowhood, one that often catches people entirely by surprise is the pulling away of one or more close friends. Most married couples have a few (or many) friends who are…

  • I Am A Widow-man

    I Am A Widow-man

    When I became a widowed man, I wondered what to call myself. “Widow” is usually applied only to women, but why can’t a man be a widow? Why accept the implied accusation when you are called a “widower?” Long before I lost my wife, I rankled quietly at the term “widower,” and it still sounds…

  • Fun Activities to DO with Your Grandchildren

    Fun Activities to DO with Your Grandchildren

    Grieving and Thanksgiving 2018 With the approach of Thanksgiving, I can’t help but think back to Thanksgiving 2012, my very first holiday following my husband’s sudden death. The grief fog was still very thick. Numbness created a comforting cushion around my body and emotions.  My husband had died in August. By the time November arrived,…

  • Widower: The Importance of Empathy to Healing Grief

    Widower: The Importance of Empathy to Healing Grief

    Widower: The Importance of Empathy to Healing Grief Empathy is critical to healing grief. For me, it was second only to gratitude as a skill that I had to develop to pull myself out of the deep depression and suffering I experienced during the first year of my grieving. After losing my wife of 45…

  • Widower: Helping A New Widower on Father’s Day

    Widower: Helping A New Widower on Father’s Day

    If your dad recently became a widower, there are ways you can help him on Father’s Day. Fathers who are newly minted widowers on Father’s Day are apt to be in the throes of intense loneliness, self-doubt, and possibly caught up in regrets and self-recrimination. This can lead to self-isolation and depression if not addressed.…

  • Widower: When Can I Stop Grieving?

    Widower: When Can I Stop Grieving?

    When I ask former members of my Men’s Grief Group why they stopped coming to the group, the most common response is, “I just did not want to grieve anymore, and the groups became a downer after I had begun to feel better.” I often hear the same story from widows, who had stopped attending…

  • Boy’s Don’t Cry…right? WRONG! And That’s Okay

    Boy’s Don’t Cry…right?  WRONG!  And That’s Okay

    by Herb Knoll Author: The Widower’s Journey  From the time little boys are first able to walk, in some cases even before they can walk, parents begin shaping the psyche of their sons by telling them, “Boys don’t cry. ” Oh really… who says so? Whoever it was, they should be picked up and prosecuted for the harm they…

  • Widower 101: More Key Learnings

    Widower 101: More Key Learnings

    Recently I shared four things that I have learned since becoming a widower. In this article, I would like to continue to share a few additional thoughts on this issue. For each one of us, this list may be different. As I write in my book The First 365, a loss is the ultimate designer…

  • Widower: How Grief Changes Us

    Widower: How Grief Changes Us

    Grief, really deep grief, can change you!  I see examples of this change through my men’s grief group, responses to my online blogs, online widowers groups, and chance meetings I have with fellow widowers in my community.  This change does not happen overnight, it can take months if not years to happen.  Many are shocked…

  • Widower: Experiences All the Same??

    Widower: Experiences All the Same??

    WSN-MO: Widower to Widower with Fred Colby  One thing I have learned since my wife passed over three years ago, is that much in my experience has common elements with that of other widowers, but we each also have some very unique components in our individual journeys. Discovering our common elements provides comfort and encouragement…

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