You found us. I'm so glad you did.
But I am sorry that you had to. Who are we?
I'll tell you what. We're not.
We're not old. We're not boring, and we're not
giving up. So come on into our widows
Circle. We're trauma, meets humor and we
remind you that you can not only survive.
But Thrive, this is every Widow thing.
Welcome back to another episode of every 100 thing long.
We known each other. Now I think it's been five
years. I think that viewers once I came
in, I guess when the group was complete, it was five years ago.
When the Liriano, thank you for bringing us together.
Exactly. And I do feel like our guys are
in the room with us, we've got some candles lit here with their
initials on it. So we feel like they're in the
room with us as well, which may be, why it's so hot in here.
It's toasty when I was thinking about what the slogan or the
motto or whatever would be for this, I kept coming back to
survive and thrive because that is what we're doing.
After my husband's death, I felt super alone.
I didn't know anyone who had lost their husband young and
when Lacey approached me, it was just like, it was literally like
that image of the life raft being like the life.
Ring being thrown out in the ocean.
No one really understands what it's like until they've been
through it and I don't think it's normalized in society.
Young widows were brushed aside were swept under.
The rug were hurry up and get married again, move on with your
life. Get over it and I don't think
people are like looking at with that really mean long-term.
Yeah. What?
What does that mean? For someone that's gone through
it. What does that mean for their
family Dynamic? What is that mean for their
kids? What That mean for their
friendships, the whole nine yards.
And so test was hard, when Oliver died, I went to a grief
group and unfortunately, the grief group was not helpful
because most of them in there, you know, 70s, 80s.
So, in one even said, you're young enough to find someone
else. Well, that was the wrong thing
to say to me, and probably to you three.
Yeah, I think we've all heard that none of us really met our
people through that Lacey started it off.
Because, unfortunately, she has been The longest amount of time
and I'm still not old just so, you know, I like to say, we're
not your grandma's Widow, but then Kara's like, that makes no
sense. It's just my background and
Publishing Grandma, I mean not affect that kind of Grandma.
My grandma better, we're not your typical Widow know, I think
so, it did Lacey was on her own for a while and she reached out
to me. She, I mean, horrible way that
she lost her husband's just like mine I'm in their Prime, amazing
guys that we were like madly in love with and we just had so
much in common and so when unfortunately we I heard about
Holly someone reached out to me, it had a giant Holly me I'd met
you. Yeah, we met through a girl that
I used to work with, right? So what happens?
And if you're a widow you probably know this already and
even anyone dealing with grief or any situation, you try to
connect people that are having similar experiences.
Is and I think that our friend groups, all recognize that they
couldn't understand, they couldn't necessarily help us.
So they started helping connect us, and the counselor at my
child's Middle School, who I was friends with.
And she reached out to me and she was like, there's another
mother who's gone through the same thing.
I would love to connect you and I got Holly's phone number and I
called like immediately that day and I was like, Hey, so my
husband's dead Ed and I know your husband's dead and again,
five months. Yeah.
It had been. It had not been a very long
time. I say the words dead died.
I don't pussyfoot around it. I had the word passed away.
Yeah. Girl, what did he pass?
What? Yeah, what naughty test, not as
expiration date. No, no.
All the regular words that people use because they're
uncomfortable with that. I don't like, I just say dead
died, so I'm sure Holly was like, huh?
Yeah, but I was like, my husband's dad was asked to help
you. Yes, I'm not sure what I'm gonna
look like, but I'll show up. And then I'm, we went to coffee
and so, when did you and Holly me?
So, people reach out to me in the spring, when the accident
happened, which was on the same road as our accident.
And I mean, I just loved your energy your way more low-key
than I am. Like, I'm the extrovert your
head be a little bit but you, you just were just a great
person and I was super excited too.
Just try to help you in any way that I could you were definitely
just full of questions. And I wasn't, I didn't have
great answers for all of it because I was kind of still
figuring it out for myself. Yes, Ed and I think you showed
up at the right time. But yeah, I remember talking
about what I do for Christmas and I was like and I was like
travel down and you're like, leave your like I'm thinking I
want to plan a trip, absolutely plan, a trip.
Get the F Outta Dodge. Yeah, that's exactly what I did,
too. It's just not fun being in your
house that first Christmas. I remember very vividly thinking
to myself, I want to know what this looks like a year from now,
two years from now, 10 years from now, and I want to find the
people that are doing it the way.
I hope I will do it, you know, because I did not want this
horrible tragedy to be in vain. I wanted to learn something from
it. I wanted to grow from I it I and
I didn't want it to destroy me and it could easily do that.
And I think the three of you are the type of widows that I wanted
to be. We are going to introduce
ourselves to hopefully other widows and show them what this
looks like and how you can not only survive, but Thrive, I
hated that how we met, but I love that.
I had people who got it. Yes.
Because up until that Time. The only person that I had that
got, it was the therapist and I thought that was kind of
pathetical, especially when it has to do with your family.
They see you a certain way as a person who handles everything.
Well, it's hard to handle things when something like that.
Good stuff happens to you and it changes everything.
So I became different and they didn't respond to it.
Well, it's, I think, for me, it was about finding myself again,
because your identity is so wrapped up and back up your
marriage, you know, your kids, your family, Family unit.
Where was I without Frank and it took time to ReDiscover and more
redefine. Yeah, so one last thing I think
it would be great if we gave one tip.
One thing that you reached for what was one thing that you did?
If a widow came to you today and said, I don't know how to get
through the day. Like what, what did you do?
We relied on my friend, Um's. A good therapist, sometimes you
have to figure out who that is. I had to give myself Grace when
I like Snap to the kids or didn't wasn't handling or wasn't
coping, I just had to be kind of myself.
It's good one, I would say, feel the feelings.
So if that means screaming in your car or like me, crying in
the closet trying to stifle, it just fucking keeps it there.
Longer, one of my son's therapist said, you got to feel
it to heal it alone. I cried in the closet too
because I didn't want the kids to see.
Oh, I do with the bathtub. The same thing.
I don't want the kids to see me falling apart.
Art, you know what I find interesting is that the worst
emotion was anger. That's the most repelling,
always say, if someone screaming on the outside, imagine how they
feel on the inside. But yet when you're a widow, the
one thing nobody talks about, they see you sad and you're
crying. But I felt rage.
That is so interesting that you say that because I follow, I'm
going to get her name wrong Edith.
Dr. Edith anger. She was a holocaust Survivor She
talks a lot about grief and and surviving trauma.
And one of the things that she says is there will be rage.
Don't deny it. That is part of the process and
it is okay. And we need to normalize it.
But imagine this though, your tell, when you're, I would go to
friends and I would just be angry, I wasn't yelling at them,
I was just angry about my life, but I found that there were some
friends friendships that I lost as a result of it because they
Couldn't handle the anger I figure.
I remember hearing one friend said it was too much for her and
so I'm supposed to minimize the pain of mean rage is huge part
of it and to deny that means you are stifling it or it's going to
come out in other ways. Most people are uncomfortable
with uncomfortableness. Yes.
And so I find myself and I'm sure you guys have felt this to
of toning it down or look. When people say I'm sorry for
your loss. What's your first?
Ponce. It's okay, thank you.
No, it's fine, I'm fine. Yeah, you know any putting Emma
knees. Yeah, that's why they're like
oh, where's your husband? He's dead.
Let's all deal, but I but I've learned to say this though, it
was funny, I've had obviously I've had a long time to think
about it. I didn't didn't handle it the
way that I wanted to in those first years, and I was kind of
mad at myself because I felt like I was minimizing my pain to
make them comfortable when the reality is I wanted to say.
It's awful, it sucks and not only sucks is that I wasn't just
sad I was angry for what he was missing, what my child was
missing and what I was missing. And I had the hardest time, I
don't know about you, guys, I had the hardest time for what I
was missing. I felt sorrier for my son, I
felt sorry for my husband and the reason I couldn't deal with
my own because it meant dealing with my own.
Yeah, that's going to happen. Still dealing with my own.
I never think about me and I'm working on that even now in
therapy because it's easier. Where do you go with the anger?
What do you do with it? How pretty the we allowed to
live in that? The the idea is that when you
feel a feeling fully, then it naturally goes through you and
you can release it. Now, it's up to us.
We can hold on to it. Just like we try to hold on to
the good stuff. We hold onto the bad stuff but
the the idea the way things are supposed to naturally flow, is
it just it's like a wave on the beach?
It comes in it washes over you and then it way it goes out.
So that's anger, that's sadness, that's Joy, that's every
feeling, but sometimes it, like, instead of getting angry with
the person asked have decided to say, I'm going to stop you right
there because someone said something like when they were
going through a divorce they said I know it's not a death and
I said I'm going to stop you right there.
I there is no need to compare pain is pain.
Grief is grief. I'm going to respect yours if
you'll respect mine, and whatever.
Feeling you're feeling, I'm happy to sit.
If you in it. And so I hope and I think that's
what we've done for each other. I'm okay with someone calling
and just like just unleashing a beast if they needed to.
It's not at me. Don't take it personally.
It's not about you. It's actually about them and
their feelings, if you can learn.
I wish people could learn to not make it about themselves.
Yes. And I love what you said about.
I will sit with you in it because that's all we want.
You can't make it. Go away.
Way, no nothing you say is going to make it better.
But knowing that we're not alone in it.
I'm going to sit with you in this and you're safe to feel
whatever you need to feel. That is the gift.
We are so smart.
It only took me 11 years to find out.
It takes a group like this, it takes a village in every way it
takes a village, at least we have one.
We do and nowhere and they will join us to.
Yes, we're inviting you into our village and just inspire people
to fried a connect, try to find out who else might be in your
community going through the same thing.
Yeah, call your school, call your church, call a grief
support group, my feeling was now the grief Center and the
Christie Center. They're two, great places are
lost in Austen that that deal with grief and that's not just
death. It's also divorce.
It's also So loss of a child, a husband, another family member.
So, those are great organizations that I know about
agreed. We can't bring your person back,
but we can help you navigate and bring yourself back your new
normal.