BW 136: Stepping Out in Faith: Kate's Journey Through Widowhood, Love, and Loss

widow interview Jan 28, 2025

[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]

In today’s episode, Kate Sansom shares her extraordinary story of stepping out in faith to marry a man who was a quadriplegic and navigating the challenges of widowhood after his passing. Kate’s journey is one of courage, resilience, and unwavering faith as she faced both the emotional weight of caregiving and the grief of losing her husband.

Kate’s powerful story highlights:

The amazing act of faith in marrying her late husband, Tres, who was a quadriplegic
Balancing the grief and relief that come with widowhood
The importance of faith and how it supported her during the toughest moments
How to move forward with love and gratitude, even in the face of loss
Kate’s wisdom and advice for widows on navigating the emotional complexities of life after loss

If you're navigating grief, dealing with feelings of relief after loss, or simply need hope to move forward, Kate’s story is sure to resonate with you.

Resources mentioned:

Brave Widow Starter Kit: bravewidow.com/start

00:58 Meet Kate: A Journey of Resilience

02:21 Love Story: From Maine to Texas

06:55 Life with Tres: Challenges and Triumphs

09:25 Adoption and Family Life

13:07 Facing Health Challenges

15:54 The Final Months and Unexpected Loss

17:35 Reflections on Caregiving and Grief

18:11 Navigating Caregiving Challenges

19:08 Balancing Independence and Support

19:24 The Impact of Illness on Relationships

20:12 Coping with Grief and Depression

22:19 The Role of Therapy in Healing

23:11 Life After Loss: Finding Purpose

27:17 Support Systems and Community

27:46 Pre-Grieving and Emotional Preparation

31:05 Faith and Understanding Suffering

35:34 Embracing Relief and Grief

36:35 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

36:49 Resources for the Newly Widowed

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction and Upcoming Webinar
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[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, Hey, and welcome to episode number 136 of the brave widow show. If you are watching or listening to this episode, fairly real time, let's say January or February of 2025, I'm going to be hosting a free webinar on the top five dating mistakes that widows tend to make.

So if you're curious about dating, if you're, If you're in the middle of dating and you're sick of the emotional roller coaster, you're sick of all the insecurities and the doubts and the fears, you don't want to miss this the webinar is happening on Tuesday, February 11th from 11 to 1230 Central Time.

And. If you hear this or see this after February 11th, no worries at all. Just go to BraveWidow. com slash love, and you will find the replay there.

Meet Kate: A Journey of Resilience
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[00:00:58] Emily: All right, let me introduce you to Kate.

Kate is a mom of two. a wedding venue owner, a worship leader, and a pastor's wife of 14 years.

This has been by far one of my favorite episodes to record, and I think it'll be one of your favorites too.

Kate, welcome, and thank you so much for being willing to share your story with us.

[00:01:20] Kate: Thank you.

I live in Maine and I've been a widow for almost a year and I was a pastor's wife for 14 years. So my husband did and, but we now own, or I now own a wedding venue, which I've owned for four years. So I run a wedding venue in Maine. I have two children who are 12 and 15 and My family's all in this area, so that's where I'm at.

[00:01:47] Emily: I think it's really interesting that you own and run a wedding venue that had to be maybe bittersweet and a little bit difficult, but I also think it's really interesting.

[00:01:59] Kate: Thank you. Yeah, I think it's actually not the weddings that are hard. It's actually the fact that this was our dream together that makes it hard.

So the weddings actually don't bother me at all. I think they're really fun still but this was our thing together. So doing it alone is tough.

[00:02:14] Emily: Such a great statement for a lot of things that we do or continue to do after we lose our person.

Love Story: From Maine to Texas
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[00:02:21] Emily: I would love to know, like, how the two of you met what in the world attracted you to that person, what you really loved about him.

So spill all the tea

[00:02:30] Kate: okay. Yes, ma'am. So our story is a very unique one. I grew up in Maine. So I'm originally from Maine. But he was Texan. And so when I went to college in Massachusetts, and then I moved back to Maine, and I was happy in Maine, I didn't expect to go anywhere else. I was gonna stay in Maine and find a Maine man and have Maine babies.

And that was my whole plan. And I was working for my dad and his company. And I was renting my grandmother's house from her. At the time, she was remarried in living in another house and she asked me one day if I wanted to buy her house. And I said let me pray about it. And she said, she'd finance it for me too, which was a great deal.

And and I said let me just pray about it and I'll let you know. And so I did. And I was pretty surprised when I felt like God said, don't do it. You're not going to be here. And I thought that's not the answer I was expecting. That launched me on this process of figuring out where God wanted me and why.

And it was like a two year process. And through that time, God made Austin, Texas loud and clear, which was really crazy because I'd never been to Austin, Texas. And, but I really felt like he told me that I was supposed to move for marriage and ministry. And so that's what I did. So two years after that conversation with my grandmother I packed up everything and moved to Texas, not knowing anybody.

And it was pretty crazy, but God opened doors the whole way. And I could tell stories for hours about the doors got opened and so moved to Texas and I've been there a couple of months, made some friends and things like that. And then ended up having an eHarmony account and Was matched to this man named Tres and I read his through his profile he talked all about his family and Jesus through the whole profile and I was like that is really intriguing because I hadn't seen any other profiles like that and he At the very bottom of his profile, he said, full disclaimer, full disclosure, I am a quadriplegic.

I was injured when I was 18. And you just need to know that before you even communicate with me, like making sure that you're, you understand what that means. And I was like, wow. Okay. So here's this man who really. Love is Jesus and all these things. And then he's a quadriplegic and I thought, you have to consider it was, I gonna pass them by.

And I really had to think it through, but then I thought, you know what, that could happen to anyone at any time, like we're not promised tomorrow. And I just thought I'm not going to hold that against him.

[00:05:04] Emily: I just want to commend you here for what is abundantly clear of your faith.

Before Nathan died, I had a moment where a dream that I had for the future, a vision that I had, Nathan, I had a disagreement about it for the first time in 20 years, and I had that little thought in my head that you so clearly Although mine was your future is not what you think it's going to be.

[00:05:32] Kate: Wow.

[00:05:32] Emily: And I wasn't thinking that meant Nathan wasn't going to be there, but it was like reality shifted. And I was like, Whoa, okay. What, then what in the world does that mean? And so the fact that you could have heard that thought and that two years later, you moved to a totally different, like I've been, I'm from Arkansas, right next to Texas.

I've been to Maine. Maine is beautiful. It's very different from Texas. Yeah,

[00:05:59] Kate: it is.

[00:06:01] Emily: That is a huge leap. And then to also see this profile to be intrigued by it and not to immediately be like, Oh, I don't want to deal with that. I think it just says a lot about your character. And a lot about the faith and the willingness you had to be like, let's just step into this unknown and see what's going to happen.

That's not, you say it so easily, but I know that's not an easy thing to do.

[00:06:29] Kate: Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't right. Just what you're exactly what you're saying. And let me actually take one step back when I was considering moving to Texas or not. I really felt like God was saying if you stay here in Maine.

You're still going to get everything you want, which is to get married and have children, have a family, have ministry, but the best I have for you is in Texas. And so that's, that was really like my deciding factor. Yeah, it's pretty wild. So I understand exactly what you're saying with that.

Life with Tres: Challenges and Triumphs
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[00:06:55] Kate: So yeah, so obviously Tres and I met, we got together for, Coffee, which actually turned into burgers.

Cause I was hungry and my cousin went on this date with us. She was visiting me and she says it was there was three of us at the date and we talked him into going and get burgers instead. And the rest is history. Like I literally looked across the table and I was like, I'm looking at my husband.

I just knew, and I was 30 at the time. And I've been on a lot of dates and and there was always a but... There was always a, but with every date I went on and with this one I called my mother afterwards and I said mom, I met my husband and she went, oh, you did. I was like, yeah.

She's okay. And I said, and he is a quadriplegic. And she went. Oh, okay. And I was like, I know that's a lot, but I'm just telling you, I know this is the one, this is the one. And it was his character and just who he was. He was just so full of life. So anyway, it was just crazy. So we got married actually nine months later which was 364 days to the days that I moved to Texas.

The same weekend, the next year, we were back here in Maine getting married because we came up here to get married. Yeah, so it was a wild, it was a wild ride for a while. He had to, we had to overcome a lot of things because, because he was a quadriplegic, I had to learn his care. I had to learn, before we got married, I had to learn all these things.

And it was a lot, it was a lot. His parents put me through what we called boot camp, and And so we, we did boot camp and then actually took him to Maine while we were just dating on a vacation to see my family because my family had to meet him. And so he'd never flown a plane before since being injured because he'd heard horror stories of like wheelchairs being lost and.

And these wheelchairs cost, 6, 000. Like just these horror stories. And I was like this is the deal. If we're really going to get married, you have to be able to fly to Maine. So we had to figure it, we had to figure this out. And so we did, we figured it out. He never lost a chair in all the years we flew twice a year for, eight, nine years and he never lost a chair, thankfully.

But we have some interesting travel stories from that, but. Anyway, yeah, he was a pastor. Like I said, he was a youth pastor when I met him. And then after we got married, he ended up becoming associate pastor for a while. And so that's what we did. We just always did ministry together. And and then our kids, like I said, they're 12 and 15 but we were.

Adoption and Family Life
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[00:09:25] Kate: Only married for not even 14 years. So the math doesn't quite work out there with that one. But we, despite our best efforts, we're not able to get pregnant on our own. And so we decided we were going to adopt. And so we ended up doing foster care. So we got these two little kids in foster care who were three in three months.

And those are the kids we ended up adopting. Wow.

[00:09:46] Emily: How do you even explain to people, did they think you were crazy? Think about this. Meeting someone who's a quadriplegic being like, okay, yeah, I could be all in on this, not even knowing the full extent of what it would require.

Yeah. Also looking at foster kids and adopting, which I haven't done. I have heard a lot about, and that's a whole nother ball of wax that Is something that, people have to be incredibly brave and resilient to open themselves up to doing that.

[00:10:20] Kate: We did IVF too before we adopted, so I've run the gamut of all the ways of trying to make a family, and the IVFI miscarried and we lost all the embryos. That's another whole God story, because it was just. As sad as it is to say it was meant to be because we would not have the two children we have if even one of those embryos had survived. Yeah, so we did it all.

[00:10:43] Emily: Which is its own grief in itself, right?

It's like that miscarriage and loss and acceptance that you wouldn't be able to have biological children and yeah, that I think sometimes really gets overlooked by people that sort of loss. But I know that, it is significant. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So how was it raising children and building this life together?

And what does life typically look like when you're married to someone who's a quadriplegic? Yeah

[00:11:15] Kate: it's a lot of work, but it's worth every moment. It it looked like most days it looked like getting up at four. And doing he took him took two hours to get him ready for the day. And so get him ready for the day.

And usually the kids would wake up start during that time, but they were just used to that. That was our process. And so they play or whatever, keep themselves busy. And when the baby was a baby, she'd just come in the room with us. And Yeah. And then he go to work, he could drive himself. So he would go to work and the kids and I would be home or I'd take them to school, depending on their ages at the time and all of that.

And but it does, it looks very different because he's not able to do any of the physical things that a husband generally does. So the housework and the yard work and the, fixing things and the, and things like that. And it definitely looked really different. We, when we lived in Texas.

My in laws were right nearby. So my father in law would come and he would do a whole bunch of stuff for us all the time. But otherwise, it was me or our son. Our son loves to work and he's very, pretty handy for a kid. And so he would do a lot of the stuff. But I think for my son, it was hard for him to have a dad in a wheelchair because he couldn't go do the normal.

Dad things the scout camp outs and the, just the things that, that a dad would normally do for that kind of thing. But it meant that our, we're far from perfect, but our emotional relationships were very good because we would sit around and talk and do things as a family that way and that sort of thing.

So in those ways, it didn't really look all that different. We were a really close family.

[00:12:43] Emily: That's great. And you guys ultimately were married. How long was it that you were married?

[00:12:49] Kate: Almost 14 years, two months shy of 14 years,

[00:12:53] Emily: which, at your, at probably your age now is almost half of your life, right?

Yeah.

[00:12:59] Kate: Yep. And I'm 45 now. So

[00:13:01] Emily: that's a significant amount. Tell us a little bit about, you've been married, you've created this family.

Facing Health Challenges
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[00:13:07] Emily: Was there ever any thought that, he, because he was a quadriplegic that he was more susceptible to things or he, may not live as long as other people that, didn't have some of those same challenges.

Did you have any expectation of that? It's a great question. Yes and no. He was six years older than me. So when we got married, he was 36. He was almost 40 and he was so healthy and there was never anything wrong with him physically outside of his injury. And like I said, he drove, he could feed himself.

[00:13:40] Kate: He like did, he could do all these things that, that a lot of quadriplegics couldn't do. But, We did know that the life expectancy of someone with quadriplegia was 60 to 65 ish, give or take, you never really know. So I, when we got married we were pretty certain that at some point I would be widowed.

We just figured it would be further down the road. We didn't think it'd be so soon. So we we moved back to Maine. I convinced him to move back to Maine in 2017. And so we moved up here and by right before the pandemic. So by December of 2019, he was starting to experience. I don't know how to, he didn't know how to describe it other than a weakness that he didn't have before which is an ironic thing to say, given that he really had very little muscular tone anyway, being a quadriplegic, but he did have quite a bit of strength, like I said, he was able to drive himself, he used his hands to drive, and And, but he started to experience this weakness and this lack of balance that, that really wasn't there before.

And he didn't really know where it had come from. And so he started to work out some more. He started to like, try to strengthen his muscles again, but everything he did seemed to make it worse. And we couldn't figure out why doctors didn't know why he was, he went and saw doctors and all sorts of things.

Doctors didn't know why. And then by the time let's see, 2022 came like the beginning of 2022, he was starting to experience increased pain in his body. Like just, I don't know if it was, he couldn't really put his finger on it if it was skeletal or just, I don't know, it just generalized pain cause he had a hard time pinpointing where it was cause his feeling wasn't great.

And but he could tell it was there. And so by the time we got to summer of 2022. He really, he hadn't been driving for two years at that point. He had stopped driving cause he, he'd lost too much strength and he was starting to struggle with simple things like feeding himself, the things he'd always done brushing his own teeth, cause he could barely lift his arm anymore.

And then everything was hurting so bad. And so that's when, I'll never forget. We were sitting outside in our front yard, July of 22.

The Final Months and Unexpected Loss
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[00:15:54] Kate: And he said, I think I'm dying. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? I was so shocked by him telling me that he goes, I really, he goes, I don't know why, but I just feel like I'm not going to be here for another year or so.

And I was like, that is a crazy thing to say to me. But I believed him. And that was when my grief started as well. And by October of that year, we'd had him on hospice. He was approved for hospice, for pain management. And then. But all through this whole, he was close to it was 18 months from the time he told me to the time he passed away.

So his timing, his estimate was really close. But what was crazy about it was that even through all of hospice, like hospice was just for pain management because that was where the meds were for it because we couldn't get meds through his doctor. for that. And so for the 15 months he was on hospice, nothing was ever wrong with him.

Like his vitals were great. His organs were functioning fine. It's like everything was functioning just as it should. And even the Friday before he died he died on a Tuesday and the Friday before he died, Our nurse came, she, she came once or twice a week to check on him. And our nurse came and he had to be re upped that week for hospice.

And she took all of his vials and she's you are like such good health. Everything looks perfect. And it was just. Four days later that he was gone. It was just the craziest thing. Yeah. So crazy. So fast, expected, but not expected. Like we knew he was dying, but I think I expected there to be a little more time or a little more warning, I guess is the better way to put it.

Yeah.

[00:17:33] Emily: Yeah, which is actually pretty common.

Reflections on Caregiving and Grief
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[00:17:35] Emily: People don't tend to think about that, but even for people that have a very terminal diagnosis and even if they know it's going to be months or even a year or two, it doesn't matter how much time you've had to mentally prepare when it happens. It still feels like a shock is what, people say.

When, so I have not talked to anyone with your particular background, but when I talk to people who have been in that caregiver role for a long time, they feel very much like they've been living in the shadows that a lot of focus has been on their spouse.

Navigating Caregiving Challenges
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[00:18:11] Emily: Now, imagine it was somewhat different.

With you, because you went into it with a harder service, and maybe in some ways that was your way of also helping with ministry was I'm going to take care of this person and help support that. But were there times where you just felt invisible or felt I, there's a lot that.

It's rumbling around in my mind. I haven't really had time to unpack it. I haven't really had time to think through what is actually happening here. What was that like

[00:18:40] Kate: for you? That's a great question. Actually. And what's interesting about that is. Is that kind of service? That kind of caregiving is actually not even one of my gifts.

So the fact that I've been married to quadriplegic in the first place is that my family was like, are you sure you want to do this? But I just knew he was the right one. I just knew. And so his regular care. I can't really say it never really bothered me. Most of the time, most of the time I was fine with it.

There were times I would be super frustrated.

Balancing Independence and Support
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[00:19:08] Kate: And this is when he was healthy. And just because I couldn't go with my girlfriends for the weekend and leave unless his parents could come take care of him. Or like there were some freedoms, because I'm super independent, like there's some freedoms that I really wanted that I just couldn't have because of that.

And that piece was really hard.

The Impact of Illness on Relationships
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[00:19:24] Kate: But he was really good about balancing it out by going to the grocery store for me with the kids or he would take the kids to all their appointments or like he'd take me out on a date or he would find ways to balance that out for me where like I would be treated instead of having to take care of But when he got sick, when he couldn't drive anymore, when he couldn't his cognitive started to, to fail probably because of the meds and so our conversations weren't as good anymore.

He didn't remember the things we were talking about. He wasn't, he couldn't think about anybody but where he was because of the pain and and so there was just this, like this inwardness to him that had never been there before. Cause he was so selfless. And so when that. Started to happen.

That about the time he went on to hospice. Yes, it started.

Coping with Grief and Depression
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[00:20:12] Kate: I started to get really stressed out really sad I think I was fighting depression as well as anxiety as well as my grief like all of those things at once because I just felt stuck like I just felt like There was because I couldn't even leave and it got to the point where I couldn't even leave him at home alone ever.

No, probably not until 2023 sometime but just because I couldn't trust him to make good decisions, even like just driving around the house in his wheelchair. Like he tried to do crazy things like you might try to get outside and then go get lost somewhere. Like I didn't know I just was like, I just don't feel like he's safe to leave home alone.

So we ended up we actually ended up getting a living caregiver and that she moved in like may of 23 and she had a six year old son. So that was a whole dynamic adding that to our family. But having her living here was such a blessing because she took so much of the caregiving off my plate. But there was still so many things like I said.

Still between the two of us, like he, like I said, he couldn't be home alone and all these things. And then we had her six year old and she had other caregiving jobs because she worked for an agency. So she still had to go to work and then we'd have the six year old here. And so and he was a super good kid, but still it's another child.

And yeah, there was definitely a lot of times where I felt. Not just invisible, but I would say to him, when the moments where he was cognitively. able, he would recognize my stress and my sadness and my, just all the stuff I was going through and he'd apologize because he, and he would say, I, I don't even know how to help you because I can't, and I'm sorry.

And he'd apologize over and over. I just, I hate this for you. And I would just be like, I just, I don't even remember what it feels like to be me anymore. I don't remember. Who she is any longer, where I just had her a year ago, where did she go? She's totally disappeared and that, I think that was for lack of a better word, that might have been the scariest part for me, where I was like, am I gonna totally lose myself in this?

Because I'm not even sure how to get back to where she used to be anymore.

The Role of Therapy in Healing
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[00:22:19] Kate: And one of the things I really had to work through in therapy, because I got a therapist the moment I started grieving, I got a therapist. Got myself a therapist and, but what I had to work through with her was like, how do I work through this?

I don't want him gone, but I do want him gone because I'm, So I'm just so I can't function like that. I am just one person and how long can I do this for where I'm not even myself anymore. And I'm not even able to mother my children anymore outside of housing and food. I wasn't providing them any mothering outside of housing and food because I just didn't have it to give.

I couldn't even take care of myself. I gained a bunch of weight. It's just I don't even know what happened. Yeah, it was a really. It was really hard. Really hard. So yeah.

[00:23:11] Emily: Yeah.

Life After Loss: Finding Purpose
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[00:23:11] Emily: I remember feeling so unsettled and so unnerved after Nathan died that I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I liked anymore.

It just, like the world was just going by past me and I was just like, Kind of observing it. I wasn't really living life. I wasn't anchored in I just felt like this little boat out in the middle of the ocean like Reacting to everything. Yeah, just reacting to all the different things, but no sense of direction and so I know that's Really difficult and it's hard to balance that I'm relieved that person's no longer here, but then it also makes me feel guilty because I should want them here.

It just creates a lot of, what I call, mind drama as well. Absolutely. Yeah. What, so you're, he was in hospice. Even though he is very healthy, you knew that he had this sense of doom, like that he of his own mortality. And then he dies. And then for you and for your kids, there had to be like a sense of relief, but also a sense of shock.

And, how. How did your brain just even grasp reality, at that point? Yeah,

[00:24:34] Kate: I think it took a while for my brain to grasp reality. I think, I see, I'm on a couple of widow groups on Facebook and I, I can, I see their posts as they're like going through either the shock or the grief or the, all the stages that you go through when you've lost your spouse and, I think, I didn't know what to expect.

My therapist had prepped me as best she could, but there were things that, of course she could never prep me for. And so I think the shock is what I wasn't prepped for that shock phase where you're not feeling anything and you're totally numb. And like people had to literally hand me food that week that he died.

I'd feel hunger, not the first couple of days, but a couple of days and I would feel hunger, but couldn't get up and get myself food. Like it was really wild. And I was like, what's the matter with me? And then taking months to get my sleep back and, things like that. It's just I don't know.

I think you just have to ride the wave and you just are where you are and you can't place these expectations on yourself. And you can't be like, okay, tomorrow I'm going to be better at. X, whatever it might be like, it's no, you just have to feel where you are at in the moment. And if in that moment, all you can do is lay in your bed under your covers, that's what you do and cry or feel nothing or whatever it might be like.

And then maybe be like, okay, in this moment. I'm going to get up and take a shower right now, or I'm going to get up and get myself an apple right now or whatever. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be super simple, but in this moment, I'm going to do this one little thing for me. And I think that helps at least for me, it helped me to be like, okay, I can take the next step.

I can take the next step. I can take the next step and get back get back to, you never get back to who you were, but the new person you're becoming instead. Yeah.

[00:26:25] Emily: Yeah. So how long has it been for you

[00:26:27] Kate: since he died? It has been 11 months. 11 months. ,

[00:26:33] Emily: I know people are going to listen and they're going to watch and they're going to be like, wow, 11 months to be able to, Share your story to be able to even laugh again, to smile, to not feel like you're still just underneath it all.

And that life is pointless. So what has been most helpful to you, over this past 11 months of being able to heal emotionally and to be able to feel that there is a purpose and there is a point in life now

[00:27:08] Kate: for you. Take care. Take care. For me, it's multifaceted and some of it is just specific to me because of who my husband was, and I'll explain that, but some of it is anybody can do.

Support Systems and Community
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[00:27:17] Kate: So like my church has been huge. They have just been, they just came right around us the whole time he was sick and right after as well. And our care pastor in particular has just been a rock for us. And He's just a phone call away if we need him for anything and was and always. And so that's one thing.

So finding what, even if you don't go to church, just finding like your tribe of people, whoever that might be I think is huge. And I've got great friends and my family.

Pre-Grieving and Emotional Preparation
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[00:27:46] Kate: My family has been really great and they're right nearby, but then I also think what's more specific to me and maybe, and hopefully some others can connect with this as well as my grieving started so long before he died that by the time he died.

And I'd worked through a lot of my grief, not all of it, obviously, but I'd worked through a lot of it because I had those 18 months of, figuring out, being able to work it through with him and while he was still with me so I could talk things through with him or I could, whatever, whatever I needed to do about the particular thing that I was working through.

He was really good about working it through with me, too. And he tried to do it with our children, too, but that was much harder. He tried to do it with his parents, and that was much harder. But he did a really good job with me. Just helping me work through what that, because he wanted me to be okay on the other side.

He also talked to me all the time about like getting back to normal life where I could be free and I could go on these trips that I wanted to go on and I could do these things I wanted to do. And, he would lament with me about not being here for the kids and not being here to help me with the kids.

But at the same time, he'd be like, but this is you're going to get to do all these things you haven't been able to do. And then what really gets me he, and he also was. And he really was forward thinking because he made us all videos. So we all have his parents, my kids, me, my parents, we all have a video from him that's specific to us.

And so we have this to always watch whenever we want to. But what really gets me is he was always talking to me about getting married again. And he was like, you need to get married again. He's you need to find somebody else. And you need to you have too much life to live to be by yourself because we'd always talked about If we were 60 when he died, like I'm not going to get remarried again, like not at 60.

But in my forties, I want to, but it's only thanks to him that I want to, because I think I would not, I might be there by now. I don't know, but he was so good about being like, you, this is what you need to do. And he actually. He spent the last year of his life praying for my next husband, which is like so humbling and so selfless.

Like what a gift, right? Is it blows me away. So whoever that man is, he's very well prayed for by Tres. Yep.

[00:30:07] Emily: That's amazing. All of the things that he was able to give to you is such a beautiful gift. Like I talked to so many widows that they have a spouse that's terminal and that spouse is in denial, right?

I'm not going to make it. That's not going to, I'm going to make it, that's not going to be me. And they won't even open up to have the conversation. So there is not a sense of, or what should I do? Or there's just a loss there. So not that it takes away from your pain and your experience, but I think that's such a beautiful gift he gave you.

[00:30:44] Kate: It's amazing because it's nothing I ever would have expected or asked for. And I think I would still be in that place of like, how do I move forward? If he hadn't done that, I really do. I think that's why I'm where I'm at 11 months out, because he was so good about pushing me forward again and being like, you're going to be okay.

And I'm going to see you again. Yeah,

[00:31:04] Emily: that's awesome.

Faith and Understanding Suffering
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[00:31:05] Emily: So one question that typically comes up with people of faith is, Have you ever wrestled with or how have you thought about, how God allows certain bad things to happen? I sometimes maybe he doesn't provide miracles or intervenes or, why did he have this accident?

Why do we have to be with it so young? Like how have you thought about. Just all those jumbled up feelings of faith in God and how you can still feel close to him when it feels like the rug was pulled out from underneath you.

[00:31:40] Kate: Sure. That is a fantastic question. And it's actually something Tres and I talked about this a lot because we talked about it in terms of his injury originally, obviously, like why at 18 years old, did God allow you to break your neck diving into a pool?

Like, why would God allow that? You were like, he was an athlete and thriving and had a great family and just like everything in the world going for him. And then suddenly. Broke his neck. And he always said he said, it's because we live in a fallen world. And this world is not what God intended it to be.

This world is not our final home. This is just temporary. My pastor now always says we live on the dot right now. We're living on the dot of the timeline of existence. That's something my pastor says all the time. Like we can't have, we can't be so focused on the dot that we miss what's on that whole line because this is life is so fast and it goes by so fast and what we do in this life only matters for the next life.

That's the whole purpose of this life. So that's what Tres and I would talk about. All the time when it came to his injury. And then when we knew he was dying, like it wasn't even, I think by then we talked about it so many times that I didn't even need to talk about it at that point with him, because it was already so well ingrained in me from our other conversations that, that we just, we live in this awful world.

And, in his life, of course, was not without a ton of prayer for healing, because people were praying for him to be healed all the time. Before he got sick, I'm talking about even people had dreams of him standing up and walking and they would believe it was from God and they would pray over him and he just was never healed, but he's healed now, right?

Like he got up out of his wheelchair when he met Jesus. So I think it's just all a matter of like how you look at it, like The world is going to be perfect again when Jesus returns and he sets up earth again and heaven is perfect right now. But when he sets up earth again, it's going to be exactly the way it's supposed to be where Tres is not going to be in a wheelchair anymore.

None of us are going to hurt anymore. All the little things we deal with all the time is just not going to exist any longer. And that's the hope that Jesus brings.

[00:33:46] Emily: I love that so much. And I love just the abundant faith and belief that you have. I think that's such an inspiration for other people who struggle.

And I try to, and in case for anyone who's watching or listening if that's you, if you feel very separated, if you feel like someone put it last week I don't know if I can. Is God trustworthy? I thought I could trust him and then he allowed this to happen to my whole family and so I would just recommend having that open conversation with God and saying I don't like feeling this way.

I don't want to feel this way, but I need your help because this is how I feel.

[00:34:26] Kate: And

[00:34:28] Emily: not to give up because you can feel that closeness to him and also feel sad for the struggle.

[00:34:37] Kate: That's what I was just going to say. It's okay to be sad and upset and mad and still have faith in God. It's okay to hold those two things together.

Yeah. It doesn't have to be perfect just because God exists and is real. Like life is not perfect. We are human still. We have emotions and feelings and all those things. Yeah.

[00:34:58] Emily: Yes. Beautifully said. And one last question for you. If, you were able to give encouragement or words of wisdom to the person who's in the middle of the struggle, in the middle of, I can't see past tomorrow.

What would you tell that person?

[00:35:17] Kate: I think a couple of things reach out to somebody, first of all, somebody, another widow or somebody you trust. But the other piece of advice is really, it was, this was a mind altering piece of advice for me.

Embracing Relief and Grief
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[00:35:34] Kate: And it's specific to those of us who have relief as well as grief and.

It is that those two things can exist together as well. So relief and grief, they can live together because I have grief every day. I have things that hit me like out of left field every day. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. And I'll be crying for, 30 minutes sobbing. But then on the other hand, I'm like, but every morning I get to get up at six instead of four and drink my coffee, but I don't have him here to talk to, but I get to go on this trip with my girlfriends.

But. I can't do this, but I get to take my daughter and do this. And, so all these different things, like those two things can live together. Cause they just can't, you don't have to feel one over the other. And there should be no guilt over having one or the other, they're, they can be equal all the time forever.

[00:36:25] Emily: Yes. Embracing, I call embracing the, and two. That can be true at the same time.

[00:36:32] Kate: Embracing in the and, I like that.

[00:36:33] Emily: Yes. Beautiful.

Final Thoughts and Encouragement
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[00:36:35] Emily: Kate, thank you so much for coming and for sharing your story, which is already one of my favorite podcasts. And I know it's just gonna help inspire so many people. So thank you.

[00:36:47] Kate: Thank you.

Resources for the Newly Widowed
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If you're newly widowed and aren't sure where to start, you need the brave new widow's starter kit inside brave new widow. You'll find a starter guide to help you through your first few months. A quick start guide. You can share with family and friends so they know how to help you. And a collection of some of the frequent topics that widows want to learn more about. To get the brave new widow series.

Just go to brave widow. Dot com slash start it's free and you'll get instant access. That's brave widow.com/start S T a R T. See you there.

Hey hey, I’m Emily Tanner. I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary. Nathan and I have four beautiful children together, and my world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.

Now, I love my life again! I’m able to experience joy, achieve goals and dreams I thought I’d lost, and rediscover this next version of me.

I did the work.

I invested in coaching for myself.

I learned what I needed to do to move forward and took the steps.

I implemented the tools and strategies that I use for my clients in my coaching program.

This is for you, if:

You want a faith-based approach to coaching
You want to move forward after loss, and aren’t sure how
You want to enjoy life without feeling weighed down by guilt, sadness, or regret
You want a guide to help navigate this journey to the next version of you
You want to rediscover who you are