BW 017 (audio) - Resilience, Faith and Generosity - with Cindy Lupica
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Emily Jones: Hey guys. Welcome to episode number 17 of The Brave Widow Show. On today's podcast episode, you are going to hear from Cindy. Lupica. Now, Cindy's a very modest person, and I'm going to read her bio for you so you have her official background and information. But what I want you to really tune into is the incredible resilience, faith, and generosity of this woman.
She has been through so many traumatic events in her life, and yet she still pours into others, wants to give back to others, and is able to share her story here with you today. So let me introduce you to Cindy. Cindy is a cancer survivor, advocate and coach, and a widow. After losing her late husband, suddenly and unexpectedly, she was left with young children to [00:01:00] raise and find her second new normal.
With her faith, she found her way now helping others as she entered into the widows ministry. Cindy is also an author. Her book is entitled, widowed After Cancer and Financial Loss, how One Woman Overcame Her Losses. Which can be found on all major platforms as well as an ebook. So please join me in hearing Cindy's story and please go check out her social media, her website, her book.
I think you're really gonna join the episode today, so let's dive in.
welcome to The Brave Widow Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Jones. We help young widows heal their heart, find hope, and dream again for the future.
. Hey guys. Welcome to another episode of The Brave Widow Show. Today I have with me Cindy, and I'm really [00:02:00] excited for you to get to learn about Cindy and to hear from her and her story. She has a lot of things that she can share with you that I think that you'll find valuable. So Cindy, why don't you just maybe share with us a little bit about who you are and what you do, and then we can dive into whatever part of your story that you're comfortable with.
Cindy Lupica: Okay. Sounds good. Hi everybody. My name is Cindy. I'm 46 years old and I am a eight and a half year cancer survivor. I had placenta cancer from my daughter. She's nine years old. She actually had an undeveloped twin. So that turned into the choreo carcinoma and I'm also a four and a half year widow. I lost my husband at the age of 51 and I have four children and I homeschool and I teach ballet and I do yoga and and I'm in the widows ministry at our church and just all kinds of stuff. I'm busy.
Emily Jones: Yes, you are a very busy lady. But I know that you have [00:03:00] a lot of great things to share with people. I know several of the folks that dial into the show, they some of them have only been widowed one to two years, so it's really helpful to be able to learn from someone who's been a little bit further out.
So do you wanna tell us maybe about you and your spouse and how you met or, how you ended up getting married?
Cindy Lupica: Okay. Yeah. My late husband's name was Mike Michael. I only called him Michael if I was mad at him. Yeah, normally it was just Mike, but yeah, he was 51 years old.
He is, was 10 years older than me, which was a little bit of a concern when we first met. But I knew that it was gonna be okay. I met him at a restaurant when I worked there. At the time, I was working two jobs and going to school full-time, and he apparently had been, eyeballing me for a couple of weeks and I didn't know that.
And that's how that came down. And we moved pretty [00:04:00] quickly and before you knew it, we had my oldest daughter who's now 23, and then my 21 year old son. And then I have another son that's 13 and then my daughter that's nine. So we were together almost 21 years and married almost 20 years.
He was, half of my life up to that point when he died.
Emily Jones: Yeah. I think that's what, one thing that was really hard for me with Nathan is we'd been married longer than I had been alive, not being married to him. So that was a weird , shift to go back to him no longer being here.
So do you mind to share, what caused his death and how you lost him or anything around that?
Cindy Lupica: Sure. . Well, his death was sudden. He technically died from catastrophic brain stem hemorrhage, stroke, and he had a massive brain bleed from his spinal cord, his brain stem. And the two of the doctors there said they had never seen such [00:05:00] a massive bleed in their whole entire career. He died instantly. He died on the spot at the moment it happened. I think we had some symptoms that were there, but they were not addressed on his end. I kept trying to get him to go to the doctor. I had actually made him a couple doctor's appointments and he failed to show up, I'm okay. I don't need it. It'll pass. But I did notice that his coloring was a little bit off. He had some swelling. Of course, around 50 men usually start gaining weight, so he was, and he wasn't eating very Right. Very correctly. So, we just figured maybe with his Italian jeans, like he always said, oh, this runs in the family and.
He did put on a little bit of weight. He wasn't, overweight too bad, just a little bit, and, but I noticed the swelling around his ankles and around his hands, and he was getting headaches, but I didn't think too much about that either because he had always had headaches from the day that I met him.
He had a migraine issue, but, [00:06:00] They were becoming more frequent, and I think he was allowing that information to be released to me where before he was hiding it because he knew I would get upset.
They asked me if he had been having headaches and I said yes. And they said, was he on any type of blood thinner pain medication? And I said, yes. And then they also asked if he had sleep apnea. And I said, well, not technically was he diagnosed, but there were times that I did hear him stop breathing in the middle of the night cuz he snored excessively loud.
So, the, there were some things that were addressed that should have been addressed. And I did the best that I could to try and get him to go to the doctor and to give him some sort of feedback of what I thought was going on. But he just, he didn't go, he had other priorities and that was work.
Emily Jones: So at that time you still had the four kids at home and you were homeschooling them and.
Cindy Lupica: Yeah. And at the time my youngest was[00:07:00] four, I believe. Yeah. Cuz it's been four and a half years. So, yeah. But he, I knew he wasn't feeling well and that Father's Day, which was maybe a week le less than a week before he died.
I noticed something was terribly wrong the way he was behaving, and he had a headache that he couldn't shake. And I knew something was wrong. And then he, the day that he died, he went to work and we were self-employed and he also had another regular job.
To make a long story short, I found out from the clients, cuz we had a transportation we were doing airport shuttle and he had picked somebody up from the airport and a husband and a wife, and he was taking them home and What happened was it was around 8:30 and I was supposed to hear from him and I didn't hear from him, so I called him and I just had an uneasy feeling.
And the kids and I [00:08:00] the two younger kids and I were settling down and we were getting ready to watch a, an old scary movie, and we were having a snack and I thought I better call him and, find out what's going on, and so his phone rang and rang, and that was unlike Mike.
He usually picked it up within the second ring, third at the most. And it just kept ringing. And I thought, that's something's wrong. So it went to voicemail. I waited a few minutes and I was really uneasy and I called back again, excuse me, and then that's when a strange male voice answered the phone and I could hear it was the paramedics. And I could hear them rolling a bed in and he said, is this Mrs. Lupica? And I said, yes. And my heart dropped cuz I knew then and there that, that something had happened. And [00:09:00] he said, well, This is the paramedics we're wheeling your husband in at this hospital here. He said the name and can you call back in five minutes and speak to the nurse?
And he hung up. So at that point, my older son was home and I got him and I told him, I said something, something happened to your dad. I said, let's. , cuz of my older daughter, she was at a friend's house. I said, can contact your sister and tell her she needs to come home. And then I don't even think I waited five minutes, I couldn't.
It was the longest couple minutes ever. So I called back and a female nurse called and she said, Mrs. Lupica. And I said, yes, can you come down to the hospital? Can you be here 20 minutes? I said, no, I can't, I live up the hill. I'm at least 45 minutes, and I have to get the baby dressed cuz we were all in our pajamas.
I said, I gotta get some diapers together and I [00:10:00] said, I'll be there I'll be there, right away. I was shaking and just, trembling cuz I knew and I asked my son and I said do you mind holding my hand,
So my son held my hand all the way down to the hospital. They told us to go to ER and they knew we were coming. So we went through to ER and they were scrambling around and they got the head doctor and the look on his face. He said you wanna come to the family room? And at that point I knew, yeah.
And then he pulled us in and he said, do you mind, do you want your younger ones here? He says, I think it's best if they leave the room. And so my older daughter, she took my younger son and my daughter, and my older son, he stayed with me and he said he said, you know that your your husband's gone, right?
I said, I know. And he said, I just wanna let you know that he went quick. He died instantly. [00:11:00] And I said, that's what he would've wanted.
He actually has two death dates. They wanted to take care of business that night and I told him, I said I have to call his family.
I need to let his family know. They went ahead and they admitted him and they put him on life support and yeah, so he actually has two death dates, which is even harder because then, we have space in between and it's like two, two days of reminding of his passing.
Emily Jones: And so essentially they just wanted to give you and the family time. Come see him and be there before they turned off the life support.
Cindy Lupica: Well technically that was my request. And I went against my husband's wishes because he never wanted to be on life support, but I knew that his family would wanna see him before we continued forward.
That night we spent, I had his phone and I had my phone. And between my son and I, we were making all these phone [00:12:00] calls. And not only that, but he was expected to be at work that night. Around 10:00 PM was his graveyard shift. And, trying to explain that to them was even harder.
Then his family came and then it started rolling forward and yeah, that was really hard. That was a hard couple days.
Emily Jones: So how were you even able, I know a lot of people will wonder like, how did you survive? What kept you going? Was it your kids? Was it just going through the motions?
But I'm sure that was a shock as it is for all of us. But then to have all of that responsibility at home and the kids and the homeschooling and thinking about the business that you were both self-employed in, like that, that was alot.
Cindy Lupica: It was a lot. Well, definitely my faith kept me going. It really brought me down on my knees, well, on my face really.
It was much more intense than going [00:13:00] through cancer. But yeah, I just kept going, leaning on the Lord and during that time we had just couple months before that, my husband died in June and we had lost our house in December. So we were already in the transition of trying to get our own place and trying to get rid of things and downsize, and we had already started doing that.
So that was my focus. Well, besides the kids, of course, but my focus was to try and get rid of and sell a lot of our stuff and just continue to downsize. And so that's what I focused on as far as the business. I did a job the day after, well, technically yeah, it was the day after he died the first time, when he was in the hospital.
That following morning I had to pick somebody up from the airport and I was more in autopilot mode at that point because I didn't know what else to do. And of course, I [00:14:00] didn't wanna leave one of our clients, stranded without transportation. But on the way home, trying to explain, because everybody knew who my husband was.
I had done jobs before, but you know, he knew. I had a lot of responsibility with the kids and then I did all the accounting and the billing and whatnot. But trying to explain cuz the customer asked, well, where's Mike? And so yeah, that was really uncomfortable. And then I did a lot of praying that night and I called my dad and I asked him, what do I do?
What should I do? And so, the answer to my prayer came to me that I told God in my prayer, if you want me to continue doing this business, then let the phone ring and if not, make the phone stop ringing. And so In the meantime I had to keep calling customers cuz Mike had customers booked all the way through. I think it was September, so I had to [00:15:00] call everybody and I knew at that point I was stopping that end of the business cuz we also had another end of the business, so I had to call everybody and let them, that there was a, a sudden death in the family and we were no longer gonna be able to provide them transportation.
And then on the other end of the business the phone kept ringing and it was for re deliveries that other delivery companies had missed. So, that was nice to have, it was a little bit easier than, transporting people and having to explain everything and all the strange hours and whatnot.
But, but yeah, the phone never rang at that point. So I knew, and yeah, that was pretty much the end of our business after we had it for probably about, I think 14 or 16 years. So that was really hard because that was another part of my life that had come to a stop. That I knew was a huge change, but I knew it was an answer to my prayer and it [00:16:00] was specific to my prayer.
So I knew it was, from above.
Emily Jones: So did you have any moments where you felt like angry with God or you were, why is this happening to me? I know a lot of people do tend to wrestle with that and I'm sure they'd be curious to know if you went through that same thing or if there was a particular reassurance or promise that you leaned on that really just kept you going through your faith.
Cindy Lupica: I was never technically mad at God, but I was mad . I wasn't mad at God, because, I don't know why. I just, I guess because of my love for him, and I just know that, he allows things to happen. I did question definitely . I had a lot of questions and a lot of things that I fought with. You know what, like you said, why did this happen?
What am I supposed to learn from this? How do I pop up? What is this all about? But I had to learn to, Let that go and lay that at his feet and continue to just live for the [00:17:00] moment and live for the day, one day at a time. And I had to focus on healing and not focusing on the past and the what ifs and the should ifs, and all of those I, I needed to take the moment and look forward from there on. And that was hard. It took a while for me to get to that point. And my focus was the kids definitely. Moving into our new home and schooling the kids. And one thing that really helped me was. The yard around the house needed a lot of work.
The prior people that lived here, they let a lot of the things die, and so that for me, was my initial healing, was looking and saying, okay. Let's make this a project. What do I wanna plant here? So, in [00:18:00] our old house we had a lot of different flowers and plants and bushes and shrubs and even trees. I wanted to bring some of that to this house. Just I guess to sort of complete things and to make me feel like I was bringing my husband here with me in this new environment. I planted some of my favorite roses and some of the bushes that he had planted on the property.
And the one little tree in the front, the the wind knocked it over and it died. So I planted, one of those flowering plum trees, one of my favorites that, my husband had planted at our old property. . So that took me a while. And then completing the brick path that goes around the house, so that kept me busy and that kept me in the process of slow healing and finding closure.
And then I got heavily involved in the church and association at the church. And then I think that was when I found out about their widows group, and then I joined the widows [00:19:00] group, and then that was just another door that opened up for the healing.
Emily Jones: Yeah, that's great. What what would you say to people was really helpful about having that group or that community of other widows that really understood to an extent what you went through?
What do you feel like was really helpful about that?
Cindy Lupica: Well, just having other ladies there that I can l ook at and say, okay, they're here. They're sitting before me. They're breathing, they're alive, and they've lost their husband. If they can do it, I can do it. I love that. Yes. And even though I was the youngest, , and unfortunately I'm not the youngest anymore because it's growing.
But at the time I was the youngest and I have always felt a connection with the older, community. Even when I was younger, I always, I felt a draw towards them. They're all just such beautiful women and just having that support and especially the ones that are well advanced, that are [00:20:00] way beyond 20 years. We have ones in there that have lost two husbands. I can't even imagine that. But just to see them and see where they're at in life and what they're doing with their lives. Of course most of them are retired, but you know, just to see them that they're in quilting groups or they're in line dancing, or they go to the senior center and just different things like.
They've found their life or they've continued the things that they had with their husband, and it was okay to do that, and everybody has a different journey. Everyone has a different way of healing. Everyone has a different way of grieving, being angry, and just to know that I could connect with them and understand and even learn from them it was just unconditional love. It's what I felt.
Emily Jones: Oh, that's awesome. I appreciate being in those kinds of groups where you can say, oh yeah, me too. I've felt that before. I've thought that I've, gone through that. And just to be able to [00:21:00] have hope, like you said, that you can find life again, that you can get your feet underneath you again.
I know for me it felt like a really long time and it was maybe more like six months to a year, but I just felt like I had a hard time just getting my feet underneath me and feeling like a halfway normal functioning person. It was like you just, like you said, going through the motions and just wondering, is life ever gonna be normal again?
And it's really encouraging to be able to see that in other people. How was it with your kids and seeing how they, each process, grief, did they all process it a little bit differently, ? Was it something that you, they kind of worked through it the way you expected 'em to, or did you have any unique challenges there?
Cindy Lupica: Every child grieved on their own way.
My older son, he still hasn't really talked to me much about it. He's now 21 . So, he left that night in the hospital. After the initial [00:22:00] consult after that he took off. I never saw him the rest of the night. And so I don't really know to this day how he's healing, but he seems, he's like, he's doing okay.
When we were grieving we would grieve together as a family. I mean, it, I learned that it's okay to hold my kids and we cry together, and that's what we did. Yeah. There were moments. , I would see my second oldest son going through his grieving process and, feeling sad or being real quiet.
And then of course my daughter, my youngest daughter, she didn't really understand. That was the hardest for me, when's daddy coming home? What's taking daddy so long? Is daddy ever coming back? That was really hard because that just like ripped my heart out even more and trying to explain to her, he's in heaven.
They just don't get it at that age. And for me, on top [00:23:00] of it, for the longest time, I don't even know for how many months, maybe, eight months or so, every time I heard a car door, my heart jumped and I thought he's home. Oh yeah, that's right. Like after waking up in the morning, you think your life's normal again, and you open your eyes and you're Oh yeah, that's right.
Those were hard. Yeah, those were really hard days. But yeah, it's, there's been other ladies. Their children are more, visual I guess, about how they grieve. My children, they weren't that way. Like I said, every child, every family has to grieve on their own. But what I did during that grieving process is we kept very busy.
And we were blessed by so many different families, from the cancer family to the church family, to the homeschool family. They were just pouring blessings on us. And I remember one lady [00:24:00] coming up to me and she says that's what she prayed for. And sure enough, her prayer was answered because we were able to go to places that we were never able to go to.
Disneyland, six Flags, the Aquarium you name it Lego Land. So that kept us busy and it all happened within the first year after my husband died. So that I think was an extra special way of healing for the kids, especially. And it kept their minds in a healthy state. Of course with going to church and, having faith. That was number one. But and then just keeping that communication open with the children. Like I said, not really with my older son because he kind of shut down, but with the other kids especially the two younger ones, keeping that line of communication open for them and just, they knew that I was going through heavy grief and there were times. Many times that I would be crying alone and they would just come up to me and rub my back or, hug me or they, we were [00:25:00] there for each other. Just it just comes natural cuz we're all grieving.
Emily Jones: That's such a sweet picture. And I know that was one of the conversations I had with my kids early on is, we're gonna have days that we're upset and we don't really know why.
Like, it's kind of in the back of our mind. Maybe somebody's feeling a little more irritable or you'll start to get teary-eyed over something and they'll say, is everything okay? Are you okay mom? And I'm like, I'm just having a sad moment. And they know, yeah. You know what that means.
But it is, Sweet to be able to have just that family together that understands and is there to help comfort each other. Well, what would you say if, let's say there's someone out there and they're in your shoes in those first few months and they're feeling overwhelmed and don't know how they're gonna get through this and don't know that life's ever gonna feel normal. Is there anything that you would say to encourage them or any suggestions that you would have for them as they work through those first [00:26:00] few months?
Cindy Lupica: Well, I would say definitely keep hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. Take each moment at a time, each day at a time. Sometimes it's minute to minute at a time.
Cry. You have to cry. If you don't cry, you don't start healing. A lot of people, they try to avoid the pain and avoid the tears, and sure it works for a while, but then it eventually catches up to you and it makes it even harder. So you have to go through the grief, allow people to comfort you, to be there, for you, to help you.
Meals finances, paperwork, cleaning your house, taking care of the kids for a couple of hours, taking you out to lunch. Get involved in your community. Definitely find a church, find a support group at the church or through the community. Grief share. I've never done grief share, but I've heard that, it's help in some manner, some light of form.[00:27:00]
Journal, definitely. I did a lot of journaling day to day, sometimes a couple days, a couple times a day. Journal how you feel. Even a prayer journal, I did that as well. I had two journals going at once, the first couple of years. Write down what you're feeling, write down what you fear, write down what you desire. Things like that. And stay in prayer. Definitely stay close to the Lord because I don't know how anybody could do this without having God. I really don't. It's really hard.
Emily Jones: It definitely is. And I just wanna reiterate what you mentioned. Processing the feelings and emotions. One thing I read and share, it'll be the podcast right before this one is you can't numb only the bad feelings.
If you numb your feelings and emotions, you're numbing yourself to all of them. And so, that to your point, just delays the process of being able to heal and to feel, and I think that was in the book, the Grieving Brain. The author mentioned that. So it is very, [00:28:00] True that it's imperative to do that as you heal.
And things like journaling and things like being creative, that all taps into the side of your brain that processes emotions. And that's why you see so many craft groups and dancing groups and different things where people are having to be creative because it really kind of exercises that same component of their brain that's associated with healing.
Cindy Lupica: Right. And that's what I tell a lot of the widow. I tell them to start a blessings journal and I have that in my book here a sample for I think a couple of days, but definitely start a blessings j ournal, write things down that you are thankful for. Because if you stay in your grief and you only focus on your grief, it's only going to drag you down and pull you down more and it's gonna hold you down and you're never going to heal and move forward if you stay in that situation.
So you have to seek the blessings, even if it's. A warm cup of coffee or hot chocolate sitting next to the, [00:29:00] fire or the window when it's snowing. Or you hear a bird or see a bird fly by and it, it's really pretty in color or you see a glooming flower. Just little things that most people don't really stop and pay attention to.
Write those down and date it and then express how you feel. Why does it make you feel this way? Why? Why are you feeling blessed by this? Does it remind you of something? Does it bring you hope? Does it bring you a smile a warm feeling? Does it take away your pain for the moment? And then as you continue to do that through the weeks and the months, and you'll start to feel the healing process take place, and then you can look on page one or page 10, and you can look at the dates and you can see how you're progressing or not progressing in your healing. For me, it was catastrophic. It was, and then it just, it brought me closer also to God as well, because you can see [00:30:00] through the grief the blessings that he still gives us and the hope that he has for us and the process it takes for us to get there.
It's just something I really highly recommend.
Emily Jones: Oh, well, thank you so much for sharing your story and for sharing some of those recommendations. Do you wanna share with people if they want to reach out to you, they wanna work with you, they wanna just learn more about you, where they can find you?
Cindy Lupica: Absolutely. Well I'm on all social media, but my website is cindylupica.com. It is under construction at the moment it was tied to my cancer page, the choreo carcinoma mo pregnancy page. So I'm trying to separate them right now. But yeah, and then I do have a book. Widowed after Cancer and financial loss. This is my own autobiography. It's on I would recommend going to Barnes and Novel cause it has all the full color and all the pretty pictures in it and all the subtitles and color [00:31:00] and it's an interactive book and it takes you through questions and looking up scriptures and like I said, the Blessings Journal.
Yeah it was real healing for me to write this. It's something that I didn't really wanna do, but it was my calling. I would just, be sure that you continue to reach out all of your viewers and don't be afraid and know that you're not alone. There's a lot of support out there.
You just have to find it. And don't sit at home, in your dark grief, there's hope for you.
Emily Jones: Absolutely. Well, Cindy, I know, I can tell you're a very modest person, but I just think about all the things that you've been through. I mean, Surviving cancer, the change with your house, having to shift with your business, and losing a spouse and raising children.
I mean, for most people, any one of those things would've been highly traumatic and you've had to deal with [00:32:00] all of them. So the fact that you're able to publish a book and to be able to be with us here today and try to help poor encouragement into others is just amazing, speaks to your resiliency and also to your faith.
So, great job in, in that.
Cindy Lupica: Thank you all credit to him.
Emily Jones: Yes, absolutely.
Cindy Lupica: Couldn't have done it without him.
Emily Jones: Hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to the Brave Widow Podcast. I would love to help you take your next step, whether that's healing your heart, finding hope, or achieving your dreams for the future.
Do you need a safe space to connect with other like-minded widows? Do you wish you had how-tos for getting through the next steps in your journey, organizing your life or moving through grief? What about live calls where you get answers to your burning questions? The Brave Widow [00:33:00] Membership Community is just what you need.
Inside you'll find courses to help guide you, a community of other widows to connect with, live coaching and q and a calls, and small group coaching where you can work on what matters most to you. Learn how to heal your heart, find hope, reclaim joy, and dream again for the future. It is possible. Head on over to brave widow.com to learn more.
