The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life (A Book Review)

The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you’re talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be overestimated. 
Cheryl Strayed

The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life, by Donald L. Rosenstein and Justin M. Yopp

DISCLAIMER: I don’t receive any proceeds from the sale of this book, even if you use the link above. Proceeds from the book go back to supporting WidowedParent.org. Donations are also accepted on their website.

Why A Book Review?

When I was approached by Dr. Justin Yopp about reviewing their book, I was hesitant. The Group came out of a project for widowed fathers. I’m a childless widow, and wasn’t sure I was the right demographic. Dr. Yopp assured me that while their project, and the book that was born from it, was originally for widowed fathers, their scope had expanded significantly. You know me, I’m game to take a look at anything that deals with grief.

Coincidentally (or not, since I don’t believe in coincidences), at the same time Dr. Yopp contacted me, I became aware of two families in the Boise area that will be dealing with this all too soon. At this exact moment, two young moms are losing their battles with cancer and will be leaving their grieving husbands behind to raise their young children alone in a society that doesn’t understand or acknowledge grief. (F*k cancer!) My copy of the book will find a new home when the time is right.

The Group chronicles the grief journey of seven widowed fathers as they figured out their new reality together, including dealing with the challenges of learning how to be a sole parent (not to be confused with single parenting) and deal with their grief at the same time. I cried through a bunch of it. The pain these men endured wasn’t so different from my own.

While there aren’t many resources available for Widows with children, the resources for widowed fathers are practically non-existent. Or were until the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill team took it on. As much time as I’ve spent staring grief down over the last two years, there were some points and perspectives in the book that took me by surprise.

Grief or Bereavement

The distinction between grief and bereavement bitch-slapped me into re-evaluating many of the grief groups I belong to. I was forced to rethink how I identify with, and describe, grief. They write, “Whereas grief and mourning can follow the loss of anyone or anything considered meaningful, the term “bereavement” is used only in the context of death.”

Whoah, insert mind blown emoji here. I am one of the grieving. But I am also in the smaller group of the bereaved. It may seem like an insignificant distinction, but for the bereaved, it’s a chasm bigger than the Grand Canyon. Don’t believe me? Just watch what happens in a generic grief group when someone compares breaking up with their boyfriend, or a divorce, to the death of a spouse. Yowzas.

The Dual Process Model

If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ve heard me say the Kübler-Ross Five Stages of Grief Model was the worst thing to happen to the grieving. The false expectations of linear grief recovery apply an impossible burden on the Widow after the death of her spouse. This was the first reference I’d seen to the Dual Process Model, developed by Dr. Margaret Stroebe and Dr. Henk Schut from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Unlike the linear Kübler-Ross Model, the Dual Process Model describes how the bereaved deal with two types of grief stressors: loss-oriented and restoration-oriented, and that we oscillate between both. I was so intrigued I asked Dr. Yopp to send me the paper, and you’ll read more about this in a future post.

Grief Isn’t a Mental Illness

“Pathologizing grief as a psychiatric condition would stigmatize a common and normal human reaction.” 

Hallelujah and thank you! To all the medical doctors out there who try to prescribe grief away, please stop it! Grief can’t be cured or fixed, only survived. I’ve written about “complicated grief” a specific condition, in previous posts, and that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about doctors who act like a W should be better in a few weeks, and instantly grab their prescription pad to magic the pain away. (I’m the first to admit many people can be helped with pharmaceuticals, but prescribing anti-fill-in-the-blanks to the bereaved without counseling should be grounds for malpractice.)

The Future

At the end of the book I was rooting for all of the Widowers as they put their pieces back together in their new WE to ME realities. Despite being a childless Widow, I felt a kinship with these men that I’d never met. I’m so grateful that the cancer clinic decided to continue to provide the support they did, and start the conversation about the needs of widowed parents. For more information on their work, visit www.widowedparent.org.

XOXO,
The Wandering Widow
Live Now. Dream Big. Love Fierce.

PRO TIP:

Thinking about getting this book for a widowed father? Everyone is different, but I’d wait at least a few weeks after the funeral, maybe even longer. And avoid the “Hey, you need this,” which we tend to receive as “You suck at grief and survival and being a human being, which is why you need this.” Instead, try something like, “My friend Lisa blogs about grief and bereavement, and she recommended this book.  You don’t have to read it now, or ever, but I wanted you to have it just in case. I love you.”

POST SOUNDTRACK

Song for Dad, Keith Urban

Lately I’ve been noticing
I say the same things he used to say
And I even find myself acting the very same way
I tap my fingers on the table
To the rhythm in my soul
And I jingle the car keys
When I’m ready to go
When I look in the mirror
He’s right there in my eyes
Starin’ back at me and I realize

The older I get
The more I can see
How much he loved my mother and my brother and me
And he did the best that he could
And I only hope when I have my own family
That everyday I see
A little more of my father in me

There were times I thought he was bein’
Just a little bit hard on me
But now I understand he was makin’ me
Become the man he knew that I could be
In everything he ever did
He always did with love
And I’m proud today to say I’m his son
When somebody says I hope I get to meet your dad
I just smile and say you already have

The older I get
The more I can see
How much he loved my mother and my brother and me
And he did the best that he could
And I only hope when I have my own family
That everyday I see
A little more of my father in me

He’s in my eyes
My heart, my soul
My hands, my pride
And when I feel alone

And I think I can’t go on
I hear him sayin’ “Son you’ll be alright”
Everything’s gonna be alright”
Yes it is

The older I get
The more I can see
That he loved my mother and my brother and me
And he did the best that he could
And I only hope when I have my own family
That everyday I see
Oh I hope I see
I hope everyday I see
A little more of my father in me