“I Understand What You Are Going Through”
No, You Don’t
By Herbert Hoefer
At this writing, my wife of 58 years, Carol, died a year ago, on Dec. 26, 2024. She was 83. At the suggestion of a grief counselor earlier this year, I started keeping notes of my experience as a new widower. As I occasionally shared some of these notes with others, people often responded “I never knew that.” Those reactions convinced me to follow the counselor’s suggestion. People need to know – and know what they don’t know.
I am a pastor, and I realize now that I never appreciated what widowers/widows in my congregation were going through. I share this record of my initial grief journey in hopes that no one will ever say, “I know what you are going through,” because you don’t, you can’t – and I don’t either. However, hopefully in my sharing, you will have some idea of what might be going on with someone you care about.
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