Sons of the Shepherd

  The Brain and Grief Mourning a Former Self Part Seven       "You're wanted in four states."  Those are not the words that you want to hear when you are standing in line at the DMV.  Let me give you a little backfill, and no, I promise you that I'm not a felon or on the lamb.  Tiff and I moved to West Virginia in 2011 and shortly after went to the DMV to change our license over.  Tiffanie's was super easy.  She walked in and within thirty minutes she had her license in hand.  Mine was a totally different story.  I went to the DMV the following day and needless to say I should have packed a lunch.  The line was LONG and people were super cranky.  I waited over three hours before they were able to take my picture.  Things seemed to be going ok except for the long wait.  But I noticed the ladies at the counter staring at the their computer and then staring at me.  They were confused.  They called me to th...

The Grief Fallout The Ripple of Loss         The Pacific Theater of World War II was entering its  fourth year.  The conflict was intense.  Battle was fought in the worst conditions and soldiers often fought for inches, not miles.  The cost for the United States was over 110,000 men.  Meanwhile Japan lost an estimated 2 million soldiers.  The conflict seemed destined to go on forever.  That is until August of 1945.  The United States dropped two nuclear bombs, one named Little Boy, the other named Fat Man.  The cities that felt the wrath of those two nuclear bombs were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In an instant, entire sections of those cities were vaporized. Buildings disappeared. Streets were reshaped. Lives were ended.   But the most haunting reality was not only what was destroyed in the immediate blast.   It was what came after.       The explosion did not stop at the center point of impa...

Missing Identity Through the Male Lens        There are many things we lose as widows and widowers that go far beyond the obvious loss of our spouse, we also lose parts of our "identity."       What I’m focusing on here is what men lose in relation to our roles as husbands and fathers. Too often, men adopt the mindset of “just get over it and move forward as quietly as possible” for the sake of masculinity or societal pressure tied to assumed roles and expectations. We hear phrases like “take it like a man” or “feelings are for girls,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Men experience the same full range of human emotion, love, happiness, sorrow, and pain, both physical and emotional just as deeply as women do. The difference is that while it is publicly acceptable for women to show emotion, men’s emotions are often ignored, devalued, or simply less acknowledged.       This mindset has been ingrained in us for ge...

Who Am I?       Two very short years ago, I was 47 years old. I was living in the parsonage at our  church in Clinton, CT, the wife of a pastor. I had been Zack’s wife for 26 years, and he  was the only boyfriend I’d ever had. We had one kid left at home with us and a brand  new grandbaby that we were looking forward to seeing in a few weeks at Christmas  time. I had just started as the church secretary about two months before that, and I was  leading the women’s ministry as well as teaching everything from the kids to ESL. I had  no idea that in about three weeks, everything, and I do mean every – single – thing, was  going to drastically change.       On January 5 of 2024, God decided to take my husband Zack home to Heaven just  before his 51st birthday. He collapsed during his morning workout in the basement, and  emergency personnel couldn’t get his heart to recover. In just minutes, I was no longer a  ...

Challenges of Being a  Young Widower       I served on the stage crew during my time in high school.  I was never one to be on stage to sing and dance.  Theater wasn't my cup of tea, but I loved being behind the scenes to watch how the play actually worked.  You had to move different scenes around, placing them exactly where they needed to be.  You only had a few moments after the curtain fell to get everything in place.  This blog post takes you behind the scenes of what a young widower endures after his wife passes away.  This is going to be raw and might make you feel a little uncomfortable.  There is a .3% chance of becoming a widower before the age of 40.  It is so rare that it rivals the odds of getting struck by lightning. Since it's rare no one prepares for it, no one talks about, and no one is prepared to address it.       There is a particular kind of disorientation that comes with becoming a widower at...