Simple, practical ways to support someone who is grieving without adding to their burden.
One of the questions I get asked occasionally is, “What’s the best way to help someone after they lose a spouse?”
Most people genuinely want to help. They care deeply and want to ease the pain somehow. But grief can be uncomfortable, and sometimes our desire to help is really about making ourselves feel better.
If you're helping someone who has experienced loss, don't do it to check a box. Don't do it because you feel obligated.
Give because you care.
Give because you see a need.
Give because you miss the person who died and want to honor their family.
As a widow, I can tell you that practical help often means more than people realize.
When my husband died, it wasn’t just losing him. It was the loss of everything he did.
Suddenly there was no one helping with the house, the yard, the finances, the car repairs, the decision making, or the countless little things that happened behind the scenes every day.
The weight of that can feel overwhelming.
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Understanding the deep fatigue that comes with losing a spouse
When I lost my husband unexpectedly, I felt like I was suddenly swimming upstream in a river of responsibilities I wasn’t prepared to face alone.
I wasn’t just grieving.
I was suddenly a single mother.
The sole decision maker.
The sole provider.
And the weight of that responsibility felt almost unbearable at times.
The exhaustion that came with grieving while trying to navigate life alone was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Grief exhaustion is real.
And it’s not just “feeling tired.”
It’s a deep, bone-weary fatigue that affects you emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. It leaves you feeling foggy, drained, overwhelmed, and often unable to focus on even simple tasks.
Some days, just getting through the basics feels exhausting.
And when you’re grieving the loss of a spouse, there are so many layers contributing to that exhaustion.
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Surrender, Inflammation, and Learning to Breathe Again
Looking back, I can see what I couldn’t see then.
It wasn’t just trauma.
It wasn’t just stress.
It wasn’t just sleepless nights.
It was my grip.
I was holding everything tightly.
Holding my grief because if I fully felt it, I feared it would consume me.
Holding my schedule because busyness numbed the ache.
Holding my future because I was determined nothing like this would ever happen again.
But control is exhausting.
And my body was paying the price.
The more tightly I tried to manage my health, my children, my grief, and every possible outcome, the more my inflammation seemed to climb. It was as if my body mirrored my heart, bracing constantly.
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When My Body Forced Me to Stop
Eventually, my body gave out.
My colitis flared severely. I stopped sleeping. Anxiety became a daily companion. My weight dropped because during flares my body couldn’t properly absorb nutrients, no matter how healthy I ate.
In 2012, unexplained hives appeared — head to toe. Angry. Persistent. Daily.
For three years.
At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. In hindsight, I see it clearly: prolonged trauma, chronic stress, systemic inflammation, and postponed grief had overwhelmed my system.
My body was screaming what my heart had been suppressing.
Sleep became fractured. I would fall asleep quickly, only to wake around midnight or 1:00 a.m., wide awake. My mind would race in the dark. Fear felt louder at night.
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When Grief Lives in the Body
Grief is not just emotional.
It is physical.
It settles into muscles, disrupts sleep, alters digestion, tightens the chest, and exhausts the mind. For many of us, it shows up in ways we don’t immediately connect to loss.
Part of my life after losing my husband was navigating a wave of health challenges that, at first, felt unrelated to grief. But looking back, I can see the connection clearly.
In May of 2008, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, an autoimmune disease affecting the digestive tract. My doctor explained there is no known single cause for UC, but it often appears during or after prolonged stress.
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