Another article from the USA Today; this time on a weekend getaway for widow’s. This was the 2nd year for Camp Widow and I actually seriously considering going, except that our much loved week on Cape Cod was the same time.
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Camp Widow bonds people in their journey of loss
Camp Widow. Those two words kind of stop you in your tracks.
Should you laugh or cry?
For the almost 200 women (and 10 widowed men) at various stages of grief over a lost spouse, the weekend getaway dubbed Camp Widow was never intended to be maudlin. But yes, there was laughter and some teary eyes, as well.
“You didn’t choose to be in this room. You were initiated whether you liked it or not,” Michele Neff Hernandez, 40, told the audience gathered Saturday for a day of workshops designed to help the widowed pick up the pieces after the death of a spouse.
“It just helps to share our journeys and know that you’re not alone,” says Penny McAdams, 57, of Roseville, Calif. Her husband died of sudden cardiac arrest two years ago.
They shared their personal tales in meeting rooms, hallways, in the lobby and even at the bathroom sink. They told of the illnesses and accidents, the heart attacks; suicides and deaths from the 9/11 attack and from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Despite their age differences, (from early 20s to late 60s) their bond was clear. They came to this “camp” (a large downtown hotel) from 37 states across the USA as well as from Canada and England. Many wore Camp Widow T-shirts. Some have remarried; others are engaged. A few brought significant others. But on each of their name tags was a ribbon noting how long it has been since their widowhood began.
Some who participated had been widowed almost a decade, but for many attendees, the wounds were still new, with badges saying 0-6 months, or 1 year, etc.
Neff Hernandez, of Simi Valley, Calif., says she got the idea for Camp Widow as a part of her work in founding the non-profit Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation, (sslf.org), a national support network for the bereaved that she started after she became a widow in 2005. Her 39-year-old husband was hit by a Chevy Suburban, a large SUV, while riding his bicycle.
“When he died, I was 35 years old and the only people I knew who were widowed were my great-aunt and my grandfather,” she says. “I didn’t have any framework for what did a widow of 35 looked like, for lack of a better phrase.”
Dana Jackson, 33, of Everett, Wash., lost her husband in a motorcycle accident in 2008. He was 28. She was a widow at 31.
“I needed to find a group and I was searching, searching, searching. I found a group that had a lot of really old people. I could not relate to anybody,” she says.
The day of workshops — as many as five or six different programs at a time — took on such touchy subjects as when to date again, how to start a new financial life, how to get relief from grief and how to deal with relatives who won’t let you move on. There were also sessions on parenting, including dealing with grief among kids and teens. And those who are widowed learned how differently widows are treated in developing countries.
Carole Brody Fleet, author of the 2009 book Widows Wear Stilettos offered tips to re-enter dating and navigate the online dating world.
“I need to remind you of some very important words — ’till death do us part,’ or words to that effect,” she says. “While guilt is a perfectly normal emotion to encounter in the human process, it can also hold you back from moving forward into a life that you deserve. I don’t want you to feel guilty about sitting here. I don’t want you to feel guilty about thinking about dating. I don’t want you to feel guilty about any area of your healing journey.”
Her what-not-to-talk-about on a first date includes: marriage or having children; personal finances, anything overtly sexual, graphic details about the spouse’s loss, ailments or family issues; job or career difficulties, politics and religion.
For a global perspective, psychologist Laura Slap-Shelton, 53, of Kennebunkport, Maine, compared the lives of widows in the USA with their peers in developing countries. In particular, she focused on India, where she said widows are outcasts living in poverty and are abused just by virtue of their widowhood. She says widows are often viewed suspiciously in the deaths of their husbands.
Slap-Shelton was widowed at age 35 when her husband died of a heart attack at 41. Their daughter was 13 months old.
“Right now, it’s estimated there are about 245 million widows in the world; 115 million are believed to be living in extreme poverty,” she said. “This is defined as living on a dollar or less a day. Five hundred million children are affected by the widowhood of their mother. One-sixth of families in the world are affected by widowhood. Over 50% of women in conflict countries — Iraq, Afghanistan — are estimated to be widowed.”
Social worker Irene McGoldrick, 42, of Wauwatosa, Wis., and her husband, Mike Hogan, 47, who also works in social services, talked candidly about how they handled dating and marriage. McGoldrick was married seven years and was pregnant with their second child when her husband, Bob, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He died a year later when the kids were 3½ and five months. She started dating Hogan about 18 months later. He had been married 14 years and had three children when he was divorced in 2002. The couple married four years ago. She writes a blog called My Sainted Dead Husband.
Yet Bob isn’t out of the picture. Family photographs with him remain around the house. And, he’s a part of the lives of both sets of kids, as the parents often refer to him in their daily lives.
“Bob is my kids’ father,” she says. “I do feel like I have a relationship with Bob. And I want his kids to feel like they have a relationship. You just can’t negate that relationship.” They don’t call Mike dad; he’s Mike.
During the presentation, Hogan wore one of Bob’s ties.
“She enjoys seeing it on me,” Hogan says.
Around her neck, on a chain, McGoldrick wore the wedding bands from her first marriage.
