Resources · Pillar 03 — After the loss
Grief, and the particular loss of a spouse
In April 2022, Shane lost his wife, Sara, after her four-year battle with cancer. There's no map for what comes next — but there are things that help, and people who understand. This is the plain-spoken version.
A note before you read: Shane is a writer and a widower, not a therapist. This page shares lived experience and trusted organizations — it isn't clinical advice. If you're struggling, a licensed professional is the right companion for this road. ← All resources
The truth about grief
There is no map, and no schedule
Grief doesn't move in tidy stages, whatever the diagrams say. It comes in waves — sometimes on the anniversary you braced for, sometimes in the cereal aisle on an ordinary Tuesday. It can live in the body: exhaustion, fog, an appetite that disappears. None of that means you're doing it wrong. It means you loved someone.
Two things can be true at once: you can laugh at dinner and fall apart in the driveway. You can build a good day and still ache. Grief and living share the same house, and learning to let them is much of the work.
"Healing is not about forgetting, but about learning to carry love forward."— from Jerry Pierson's advance praise for On the Healing Road
Widowhood
Losing a spouse is its own kind of loss
When your person dies, you lose more than them. You lose your partner, your co-parent, your witness — and the future the two of you had already furnished in your minds. You lose the person you would have leaned on to survive exactly this.
And while all of that lands, the world hands you paperwork: accounts, insurance, a hundred phone calls that each require saying the sentence out loud again. Be patient with yourself. Take the calls in batches. Let someone sit with you while you make them.
There's also the loneliness no one warns you about — the kind that shows up in a crowded room, among people who care but can't quite reach it. That's precisely why communities of the widowed exist: not because your friends failed, but because some things only make sense to people walking the same road.
From the road
What helped Shane most
- Refusing to go through it alone. Community — family, friends, and people who'd lived the same loss — carried more weight than any single strategy.
- Motion. For Shane and his son it was literal: a converted truck and a month of American highway. Movement won't outrun grief, but it can give it somewhere to breathe.
- Telling the story out loud. Mile by mile, Shane told his son the full story of his mother. Saying a person's name keeps them woven into your life instead of locked in a drawer.
- Moving forward, not "moving on." The goal was never to leave Sara behind — it was to carry her love into whatever came next.
The whole story
On the Healing Road is this pillar in book form — a father's struggle to accept widowhood, a son's first encounter with loss, and the slow turning of a wound into a scar.
Reaching for more
When to bring in a professional
Some seasons of grief are heavier than friends and time can carry. If you can't function for a long stretch, feel stuck or hopeless, are leaning hard on alcohol or anything else to get through, or have thoughts of harming yourself — that's the moment to reach for professional help. Not because you're weak. Because you matter, and because grief counselors exist for exactly this.
If you're in crisis: In the U.S., call or text 988 anytime to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
Where to turn
Support that understands this loss
- American Cancer Society — Coping With the Loss of a Loved One
- CancerCare — Grief & Loss Support — free counseling and groups
- Dana-Farber — Bereavement & Grief Support
- Hope for Widows Foundation — community for widows and widowers
- National Widowers' Organization — support built for widowed men
The story behind this guide
A wound, a road, and the slow making of a scar
On the Healing Road is the memoir behind these pages — honest, plainspoken, with an undercurrent of hope.