Supporting a widow from far away

When you live far away from your widowed friend it is easy to assume that you can’t do anything to help or that all of her friends who live close by are helping her so you aren’t needed, but don’t let distance keep you from supporting your friend in her time of need!

Here are just a few suggestions to get you started. (in no particular order)

1. Send a card - simple and sweet. You don’t have to say much Just a few sweet honest lines. If you have a favorite memory of her spouse be sure to share it in the card, she will cherish that. If you aren’t sure what to say, admit it and keep on writing! Even something short and sweet will help her know that she is still loved and thought about.

2. Food - Since you don’t live close by you cannot drop by with a casserole, but if you want to help her out with food items, consider ordering something from edible arrangements. They will deliver it to her, the arrangements are beautiful and it will give her something healthy to snack on when she does not feel up to eating a full meal.

If you know any of her friends that live near her you could also consider sending them money with which to order her a meal or stock her pantry.

3. Flowers- If you want to send an arrangement of flowers you can usually call a florist in her town and have them create something and send it to the funeral home, for the funeral or viewing.

4. Other gifts - If you would like to send her something other than flowers, there are several nice ideas out there. One thought, is to print out your favorite photo of or with him, frame it and send it to her. This could be included with a letter (see above) recalling a favorite memory you have of him or as a stand alone gift.  Here are a few websites where you can order sweet “in memory of” gifts as well as other gift ideas.

sympathy gift shop

The comfort company

Sympathy solutions

In time of sorrow

And here are a few more sites with more gift ideas than we included here!  one   two  three

5 - Gift basket - Could be called a care package or a sympathy basket. This is a link to one you can purchase online. It rather little pricey in my opinion, but I love the idea. This would be an easy gift to make yourself, and that way you could personalize it with her favorites as well!

Possible things to include:

“comfort food”, coffee or tea, home made photo book of her beloved, or a picture frame as mentioned above, a cd of soothing music, bath salts, a printed out list of online resources for widows. Etc. There are SO many different things you can include and it is great because you can customize it yourself throwing in a bunch of little things that she will appreciate and cherish.

This would be a good idea either soon after the funeral, or even on an “angelversary"

This is just a short list of ideas to get you started and show you how much you can do even with lots of miles between you and your friend! Get creative and step out and do something! You never know how much even the smallest gift or acknowledgement could help your friend feel loved and remembered in her time of grief. 

What about you?

Have you done anything “from afar” for your widowed friend? Please feel free to comment with more ideas of things you have done to support your widowed friend(s) and we may add them to our list.

Widows: if some one has done something for you that was particularly kind or helpful please also share so we may also add to our list that way as well. 

By Vi - Co Founder of Friends of Widows 

Don't be afraid

Supporting a widow can, at times, be intimidating. Figuring out the "right" things to say and do is difficult. Even though every widow is different and therefore her needs and the way she grieves will be different, there are some things that seem to ring true with most widows. This is a small list created to help the supporter of a widow to see some basic guidelines and ideas about how to support a widow. Also listed are a few things that may seem like the right thing to do, but are generally not helpful to a widow.

We hope that this post encourages you to continue reaching out in love to your widowed friend, and helps you to understand more what you can do to help.

1) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Keep in touch. Don’t assume your friend needs room or space to grieve. There is already something huge missing in their life. Don’t be another missing piece. A quick call, text, email, card, etc go a long way. Many widows comment that they are terrified that after the funeral is over, that people go on with their lives yet their own life will never be the same. Losing their spouse already creates the feeling of loneliness, abandonment, and insecurity of the future; they don’t need to lose their friends as well.

2) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Verbalize and admit you don’t know what to say/do. Be honest. Tell them, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Widows would rather you tell them that you don’t know what to say or do vs. trying to understand by telling them a story of losing your friend or even a close relative. They may be able to hear your story later, but not now. Being there is more important than understanding. Pretending to understand is never okay.

3) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Tell your widowed friend that you want to do specific things for them. A widow’s life has been turned upside down and they deserve clear and concise conversation. Normally, they are in such turmoil, if you ask them what you can do for them, they don’t even know what they want and may turn you down because saying yes requires energy to receive your offering. Tell them, “I am going to come over and sit with you at ___ time”; “I am going to bring you dinner on _____”; “I am going to go run errands with/for you because I see you need X Y and Z done. I will be over tomorrow to do that with you.” Try some of these instead of saying “Let me know if you need anything” or “Call me if you need anything.” If you feel like you are being too pushy, tell them you will continue to do things for them until they tell you no too or that it is too much. Too much is always better than not enough.

4) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Talk about and mention your friend’s spouse. Let your friend know you still cherish the memories you all had together. Refer to our husband’s acts or words—serious or humorous. Widows are comforted by knowing that their spouse has not been forgotten. Many widows say that 2 to 3 years after their spouse’s passing, they long to hear someone mention the person who is still encompassing their thoughts yet seems to be forgotten by everyone else.

5) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Invite your widowed friend to events. Even if they decline a few, keep trying. Don’t assume what they will or will not be up for. Let them know you thought of them and still would like to include them. Do not assume they will not be interested in participating in couples events. Many widows discuss how they were close with other couples and then they lose touch because the couples stop inviting them along which further isolates them reminding them that they are alone.

6) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Accept where a widow is in their grief process. Marriages are brief, long, healthy, dysfunctional, intense, and remote.. Death comes suddenly or in tiny increments over years. Their marriage experiences are so different, as are we. Grief is a journey and there isn’t a specific timeline on when a widow should move from one stage of the grieving process to the next. Allow them to be where they are and don’t try to push them to the next stage because you believe they should be moving forward at a faster rate.

7) DON’T BE AFRAID TO: Follow up on what you said you would do. If you are not sure that you will be able to follow through on an offer (to take dinner, or do something with your widowed friend) then don’t make the offer at all. A better solution would be to merely say “I’m thinking of you” than to not follow through with what you said you would do.

*This post was originally a "status series" that we did on our facebook page. We made it into a blog so that it would be easier to find and read in the future.

By Vi - Co-Founder of Friends of Widows

Supporting a widow: after the funeral

*This post is the first in a series we will be doing called “supporting a widow:” Each post will give ideas and/or resources for supporting a widow through different stages of grief and in different walks of life. But because each person grieves differently there isn't a "5 step" easy process to helping your friend through her grief. These posts are just to be used as guidelines or starting points for you to use as you figure out how you can best support your friend. Each widow is unique just as each person is, so part of your job as a supporter is to “custom build” a plan about how you can best show your support to your friend. We offer you support, and a place to begin. *

The time between your friend losing their spouse and the funeral seems to pass in the blink of an eye.  There are so many to-do’s that everyone stays busy and adrenaline keeps everyone moving.  Once the funeral is over, we as supporters often ask ourselves, “Now what?”. The first question you should ask yourself is:

Are you a physical or emotional supporter?

I (Gwen) am a “doer” which makes me a physical supporter. After Michelle’s husband died, I immediately jumped in doing the dishes, laundry, shopping, etc. Of course, I was a emotional supporter also but, many of the lengthy cries with Michelle, were filled by other friends while I was in the background doing the dishes! I am not sure why I seem to leave the dishes in the sink at my own house though!

I (Violet) am also a doer by nature. So since Rachel and I live in different states after her husband’s funeral I assumed that because of our circumstances, there was nothing I could really do to support her. But now, I have become an emotional supporter for Rachel, I call her every few days, check up her via email, send her cards in the mail on important days etc. I do these things to make sure she knows she is not forgotten. Even if you are a ‘doer’ by nature you may find that because of circumstances in your own life or family emotional support may be how you need to show your love for your friend.

In this article, I (Gwen again) will mainly address the physical supporter with some resources that cover the emotional supporter.  I realize that there is a fine line between supporting and enabling your widowed friend.  I have heard many widows’ supporters ask how to define this line.  (blog post on this very topic coming soon!) Unfortunately there isn’t a specific answer that fits every relationship. My suggestion is to imagine the time when the widow will be able to start reengaging in life an how that transition is going to affect them.  In my situation, many of us supporters jumped in and fulfilled every duty of Michelle’s life for many months.  She literally sat on her couch and cried for months while everyone not only was fulfilling the physical needs of her house but, people were stepping in to discipline her children, get them bathed, etc. because she had ‘shut down’. I now know this "shut down is 100% normal and to be expected. I personally believe doing EVERYTHING for the widow is a disservice.  She was continually saying she was afraid people would forget about her and continue living their lives when her life was never going to be the same again.  Because everyone was performing every function of her household and child rearing, when people finally did need to get back to their lives, it added to her feelings of abandonment and loneliness and it took a lot for her to reengage since everyone had been doing everything for her. 

I AM NOT SAYING that supporters should sit back and let your widowed friend figure life out on their own. I am saying to assist them into learning how to single parent and run a household on their own and don’t take over their life like I did.  Ask them what they think they can do and what they would like you to do. I know all of us "well doers" caused Michelle’s transition back into life a lot harder.

There may be some things or decisions that your friend cannot handle at first, that is okay. But instead of doing the grocery shopping for her every time, offer to do it with her instead. Same goes for laundry and cooking. You can do it for her some, but oftentimes offer to do it with her.

Something else you can do to help your friend is to connect her with other widows. A great avenue for this is the Hope for Widows Facebook Page - a closed group for widowed women. There, she can find people to emotionally support that really understand what she is going through, because they are going through it too.

There are so many resources that weren’t available 4 years ago when Michelle’s husband died.  I have recently found the resources listed below.  People gave Theresa quite a few books but Theresa was not ready to read a book for many months after her husband died.  After a few months, I started reading the books people had given her and that when I felt I finally started to gain some understanding. Chances are, your widowed friend won’t be ready to read a book either so you will probably need to read the book yourself to know how to help your widowed friend.  Here are a few resources I wish had been available after the funeral:

1. For the immediate household organization, financial things to figure out, and just figuring out how to help her get her ducks in a row, I like the book “SOLO-Getting It All Together When You Find Yourself Alone” by Roslyn Reynolds, you can buy it here.  She is LDS which is a Christian faith so a few of the things on her to do list are related to the LDS faith.  Most of those items can be substituted for any religion.  Her to-do list is the most thorough I have read thus far regardless what religion you choose to believe. 

2. For learning how to single parent, How Tough Mom’s Succeed In Tough Times by Tiffany Berg and can be purchased here.  It is my understanding that her website is being reworked so if you don’t find the actual place to purchase the book, you can email her at tiffany (at) tiffanyberg(dot)com and she will give you the correct information.  This book is EXCELLENT for any parent either single or married.  I laughed and cried through this book because I was able to look at my parenting skills and apply a few things.  (I use the word few loosely!)

3. The basics for a widow to quickly learn how to function immediately after the funeral through the next 90 days, I really like an article written by Linda Della Donna called For the New Widow: Ten Tips To Help Her Survive…After the Funeral.  She has an entire series of articles, they are great resources for a new widow. She has written many articles for friends of widows as well. These articles will be in your best interest to read to know what the widow is thinking and feeling. You can find these articles and more great resources on Linda’s website.

For those of you offering emotional support, we could write an entire novel on what to do.  Ellen Gerst has the perfect saying to describe the decisions ahead for a widow.  She says, “You will either DECIDE to just SURVIVE by going through the motions of life without the emotions, OR you will DECIDE to THRIVE. THE DECISION IS YOURS. You can make a conscious decision to move forward through your grief journey in order to find a place of peace, acceptance, and personal renewal, or you can decide to stay stuck in sadness forever. Over time, you must learn to put your grief in perspective and let it work for you, rather than be its slave. It is not possible to go back in time before your loss. Your ultimate power lies in how you respond to the new circumstances of your life.” This is a very touchy subject for a non-widow to discuss with a widow because we have not walked in their shoes.  If the widow you are supporting is choosing to survive, Ellen’s website has a great article called, “101 Tips and Thoughts on Coping with Grief”. 

Remember that has the friend of a widow, it is not your job to tell her how to grieve or when she should be doing or not doing things. Your job is to support her as she grieves in her way. Offering emotional support to a widow can be a daunting task because she will not be “fixed” by you. All the support and love you can offer will not make it all better, but it can help her to know that she has not been abandoned by every one, and she is still loved. And something a simple of that is essential to a widow (and every one really).

I hope these resources and tips can assist you to gain a bit more insight into what a widow is feeling and how to best support her after the funeral.  As the supporter of a widow, I had many people judging me on if my actions were enabling, supporting, not enough, etc for Theresa.  What I know is that if you move forward with a prayer in your heart to have God and her soul mate both watching you from heaven and assisting you with her needs, that you will know how best to serve your widowed friend.