I recently finished reading “Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice” by author and podcaster Jenny Lisk and can’t recommend this memoir enough to widowed parents, especially those who became caregivers to their spouses before they died. Lisk describes with honesty the often heartbreaking, daily challenges of caring for her husband after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, while parenting two children and working. Since we had similar corporate jobs, her story particularly resonated with me.

This might sound strange, but a small part of me had been a little envious of those who spouse died from a terminal disease. Since my husband died suddenly from a heart attack, my daughter and I weren’t able to say goodbye or discuss his wishes for his funeral or our daughter’s future. But after reading the book, I realized how foolish I was to be envious. It was clear how extremely difficult Lisk’s path was, especially because her husband immediately needed brain surgery post diagnosis and was never the same, physically and mentally, after that. Lisk describes buying greeting cards for her husband to fill out for their kids, so she could give them to her after he was gone, but he was never able to fill them out.

Besides learning about Lisk’s experience as a caregiver, another reason why I learned so much from this book was because Lisk describes the difference between intuitive versus instrumental grievers, terms I’d never heard of before. I found more info on the terms on The Center for Loss and Bereavement website:

Intuitive grievers experience their grief as very intense waves of emotion. Their feelings are very strong and expressed like “an open book”. Intuitive grievers cope and adapt to death by exploring and processing feelings. The benefit of “working through” feelings to facilitate healing makes intuitive grievers quite good candidates for support groups.

Instrumental grievers are less “feeling-based”; they experience their grief more cognitively and physically. They tend toward inward reflection, thinking about all aspects of the loss as well as attempting to problem solve to adapt to the new normal. Instrumental grievers typically cope in behavioral ways, for example building something to memorialize or pay respect to the deceased, etc.

The description of an instrumental griever was me to a tee. After the funeral, I had immediately jumped into problem-solving mode, creating a spreadsheet of the post-death tasks and also preparing to sell my house and buy a new one. Additionally, within a few months, I started working with my daughter’s school, where my husband had been a frequent volunteer, to buy a memorial buddy bench. It was as if completing all these tasks would “fix” my grief or at least distract me from it. I was also still working as an IT project manager during this time.

The day after the funeral, a friend asked if I was still in shock. I didn’t ask why she asked me that, but assumed it was because she hadn’t yet seen me cry. I had cried, but in private. I remember at the time wondering if my inability to cry openly meant I was emotionally repressed or if I wasn’t grieving “the right way.” I found my grief support group helpful because it validated the complex and sometimes contradictory feelings that I felt. So maybe on the continuum of grieving styles I was closer to the middle. Or maybe the point is that it doesn’t matter where you are on the continuum. Learning about the different grieving styles taught me that however I grieved was valid.