I had such a great discussion with Jeanette Koncikowski for this episode. We first talked five years ago, when Jeanette was my guest way back in episode 10. I invited her back now because she’s out with a brand-new book, Shipwrecked: A Memoir of Widowed Parenting and Life After Loss. It’s a “teaching memoir,” in which Jeanette both shares her family’s journey and explores themes, issues, and questions common to newly widowed parents.

And like our last episode, this is a story where my guest had a complicated situation when their spouse died. Jeanette and her husband Mark had been separated for over a year; when he died, they were dating again and in couples counseling. One of the reasons Jeanette wrote this book and speaks at Camp Widow and other places is that she wants people to understand that not everyone had a perfect marriage when they were widowed.

Plus: Jeanette gives us a gift toward the end of the book, where she interviews her now-teenaged children about their experiences losing their dad and reflecting on the decade since his death.

Links & show notes

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with Jessica Waite for this episode. I’ve had a number of listeners recently asking for more discussions with widowed parents who have complicated situations. Or, as one listener put it, “the end-of-life stories that are really ugly.”

One of the gifts Jessica is giving us with her new book is that she’s writing about stuff that not everyone is willing to write about. When her husband died suddenly, she discovered that he was living a secret life. She found too many secrets – all at once – and asked herself: If he lied about all that, what else did he lie about?

In the end, though, The Widows Guide to Dead Bastards is a love story, and it’s about getting to a place of healing and reconciliation when facing the unthinkable.

Links & show notes

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with Sara Wingerath-Schlanger for this episode.

Sara is from Tuesday’s Children, which was founded in the wake of 9/11 to serve families affected by that tragedy in 2001, including the 3,051 kids who lost a parent that day. Sara tells us they are one of only three nonprofits started because of 9/11 that are still operating today, and she fills us in on who they serve today and how.

I think you’ll be especially interested in the book Tuesday’s Children put out in 2011, for the 10-year anniversary. The book is called The Legacy Letters: Messages of Life and Hope from 9/11 Family Members, and in it, there are letters from relatives of 100 of the individuals who died that day, including from teens and young adults who were kids when their parents died. It’s a powerful way to hear directly from our young people (and others) about how the loss of their loved ones on September 11 has affected them over that first decade post-loss.

I hope you enjoy my discussion with Sara Wingerath-Schlanger.

Links & show notes

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with Lisa Keefauver for this episode. You may know Lisa from her popular podcast, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch, and now she has a brand new book out by the same name. In this episode, we talk all about ambiguous losses, disenfranchised grief, how the three most important rules of scuba diving also apply to life—and, of course, the origin of her podcast and its name. Lisa is a widowed parent and a therapist, and her book has “invitational” language, not “instructional” language. I invite you to check it out. And for the Grief Allies out there, Lisa reminds us to remove the words “at least” from our grief support vocabulary and that’ll go a long way toward supporting our friends who are grieving.

Links & show notes

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with Ryane Moates for this episode. I love what Ryane is doing with her YouTube channel, Ryane to the Rescue, where she educates on all things home repair, yard care, and more that widowed people find themselves responsible for after the death of their partners. Ryane herself felt so empowered after she started learning and doing all the things her husband used to do around the house – which was all new to her – and she knew she wanted to share this message of hope, healing, and empowerment with other widows.

Check it out - and let me know which video is your favorite!

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with Jordan Arogeti for this episode.

Jordan and her company have a new tool called Support Now. It’s a bit like a mashup of some tools you may be familiar with, such as CaringBridge, Go Fund Me, and online meal trains. But it’s SO much more than that.

In preparing to speak with Jordan, I had an “Ah-Ha!” moment:

Support for the newest grievers is all about ORGANIZING and ORIENTING a widowed parent’s own community.

ORGANIZING: Support Now is a comprehensive tool that facilitates exactly this. Listen to my discussion with Jordan for a good overview.

ORIENTING: I have LOTS of thoughts. Some of them you can find now at GriefAllies.com, where you can download my free tips & resources for supporting grieving people. (And stay tuned for more on this!)

In the short term, a widowed parent’s own community is going to be best positioned to help them with urgent and immediate needs. I’m working on ways to make that easier and less awkward. And then, of course, to introduce resources, books, experts, and more who can help after those immediate-term needs have been tended to.

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with Dr. Linda Shanti McCabe for this episode. We haven’t tackled the topic of art and how it can help with grief on the show before, so I was excited to talk with Linda about that as well as her program called the Art of Grief which is starting soon. Linda is a widowed parent herself, and she’s also a licensed clinical psychologist. Listen, too, as she shares the major change she made shortly after her husband’s death, and what she’s planning as her son prepares for his 13th birthday.

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

-=-=-=-=-

Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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I had such a great discussion with child life specialist Jessica Correnti this week on the Widowed Parent Podcast. Jessica is the founder of a practice called Kids Grief Support. She is also the author of two picture books for young grievers, including her newest, The ABCs of Grief, which will be available in February 2024.

In this discussion we dive deep on a number of topics, such as: the power of books to help kids see that they are not the only kid with a dead parent; the importance of being honest with kids; examples of clear language to help kids understand what it means when someone dies; what she looks for in a developmentally appropriate grief book for kids; and much more.

So much of our focus at the Widowed Parent Institute is on helping parents learn about children’s grief and how to support their own grieving kids. Today’s guest has so much to share with us on this topic. Be sure to follow Jessica on Instagram, too, where she shares tips and resources about children’s grief.

The Widowed Parent Institute guides the journey of solo parenting after loss. Get free resources for widowed parents and for supporting grieving friends.

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Thank you sponsors & partners:

Help Texts - Grief support text messaging service. Tips and support delivered all year long, personalized based on your loss. Listeners get $10 off: https://helptexts.com/jennylisk

BetterHelp - Talk with a licensed, professional therapist online. Get 10% off your first month: betterhelp.com/widowedparent

Support the show - Buy Me a Coffee

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