Whoever Dies First Wins with Karen Bonofiglio

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Whoever dies first wins" and wondered what it could possibly mean?  At first glance, it might sound shocking—even a little unsettling. But for today's guest, those words became part of a profound journey through love, loss, grief, and ultimately, healing.  

My guest today is Karen Bonofiglio, a retired school teacher, psychic medium, and international bestselling author of Whoever Dies First Wins. In the span of just thirteen months, Karen lost her father, her mother, and her beloved husband. What followed was a journey through unimaginable heartbreak, depression, and the deepest questions many of us face after loss. Yet within that darkness, Karen discovered something unexpected: hope, purpose, and a deeper understanding of life's spiritual dimensions. 

In this heartfelt conversation, we'll talk about grief, signs from loved ones, caring for family members with Alzheimer's, the lessons hidden within our hardest experiences, and how Karen transformed her pain into a mission to help others through her widow support community, the Janda Sisters.  

This is a conversation about loss—but even more, it's a conversation about resilience, love, and finding light when life feels impossibly dark.  

Let's dive in. Or should I say “Let’s Call IT in”!  

Transcript

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Whoever dies first wins" and wondered what it could possibly mean?  At first glance, it might sound shocking—even a little unsettling. But for today's guest, those words became part of a profound journey through love, loss, grief, and ultimately, healing.  My guest today is Karen Bonofiglio, a retired school teacher, psychic medium, and international bestselling author of Whoever Dies First Wins. In the span of just thirteen months, Karen lost her father, her mother, and her beloved husband. What followed was a journey through unimaginable heartbreak, depression, and the deepest questions many of us face after loss. Yet within that darkness, Karen discovered something unexpected: hope, purpose, and a deeper understanding of life's spiritual dimensions. In this heartfelt conversation, we'll talk about grief, signs from loved ones, caring for family members with Alzheimer's, the lessons hidden within our hardest experiences, and how Karen transformed her pain into a mission to help others through her widow support community, the Janda Sisters.  This is a conversation about loss—but even more, it's a conversation about resilience, love, and finding light when life feels impossibly dark.  Let's dive in. Or should I say “Let’s Call IT in”!  

Speaker Dar 

Welcome to Karen. Before we start discussing this interesting topic of whoever dies first wins, please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to this point. 

Speaker Karen 

I would be happy to, Darla. Thank you for having me on your channel. I'm very appreciative of that. 

Speaker Dar 

A little bit about myself. Well, let's see, I was just an ordinary person living my life, and I'm retired. I was a school teacher, a retired school teacher. I think everybody goes through life through this school of hard knocks, where you have your lessons that kind of knock you down, and you learn from those lessons, and that's what I've had a lot in this life. I remember at a very young age I could see when I was in bed sleeping, I could see colors swirling around my darkened bedroom. I wasn't fearful, and I would ask my mom what those colors were, and she never shut me down. She was very spiritual, and we would talk about those things, so at a very young age I started exploring the other side, the other realms, and started seeing psychic mediums, and I remember when I was a young girl, about to be married, and I saw a palm reader, and the palm reader told me that something about my blonde-haired husband, which I thought was very odd, because I was married to a black-haired Cuban, again, to marry a black-haired Cuban. Little did I know that would be my second husband. So, I've kind of always done that, and taken classes on animal communication, and, and lived in that world. I also would see spirit, I would hear from spirit. I remember a time when I was, my husband, my son, my daughter, my husband, my daughter, and I were home, and my daughter and I were walking down the hall, and we looked inside my son's bedroom, and he was away at college, and we saw an elderly man sitting at his desk, and there was no elderly man living in our house, and so we had both seen a ghost at the same time, so I had used those talents and practiced it, but never really did anything with them. I remember James Von Prague told me at one time he was very offended with me and very brusque, and he told me I had to use my talents, and so that's kind of how the background of my story, and fast forward many, many, many years, I was taking care of my parents for the last nine years of their life until the end of their days, and at that time it was very unusual, my parents did get Alzheimer's, and I remember Dad telling me, and it was about two weeks before he was going to pass. He was so surprised that his Navy buddies were there visiting him, and I thought, "Oh, pops, that's so cool. So I knew that he was getting visitations at that time, and I never really opened myself up to, oh, it could be someone that you had impacted earlier in your life, and here his Navy buddies were coming through, and I'm sure other people were coming through. So, Pops died at age 95 and my mom was still living, and I was taking care of her, and consequently she hung on another year. She died one day short of his death date, and she went to heaven. And what happened when she passed was so incredible. I had been at both of my parents' passes, and when Mom was there, her hospice nurse was there also, who became a good friend, and she said, and it was fascinating. She was telling me what was happening to Mom as she was slowly diminishing, and I just found it fascinating what her body was going through, and we had our hands on Mom and holding her and touching her, and Beth said she just drew her last. Breath and then she said, Did you see that? And I said, No, did I see what? And she goes, the lights flickered, and right when she said that, the lights flickered again. And I thought, Mom, yay, yay, you're up with Dad, you're, you're, you're, you're with him, you've been wanting to be with him this whole year, because they had been married 72 years, their bond was so strong. And then mom's favorite caregiver at the foster care came in, and the lights flickered for the third time. So, mom was saying goodbye to us, and it was beautiful. If you have ever taken care, been a caregiver, it, it's a job for you, it's, it's quite a job, and so my life was put on hold to be with them for those nine years, and to take care of them, making all their decisions, buying their groceries, just doing everything you need to do, and I kind of put my husband on the back burner, and he knew how much that affected me. He didn't tell me a lot of things that were going on with him, because he didn't want me to worry. And then I thought, okay, now, okay, now I can go back and devote my life to being my good wife and being with my husband. Our kids were growing up and out of college, and then three weeks later, my husband passed unexpectedly, and that brought me to my knees, just brought me to my knees. I had, we had on that day, it was Covid. It was during Covid, and I had the kids over, and we were celebrating my daughter's birthday, and my husband was a big man, six three, a big gentle giant, and he had a robustness for food, he loved food, and we were having Indian food, and he loved it. So we're having a very nice time having Indian food, and and after dinner, he goes, "Honey, I don't feel very well, and I knew he had over eaten, like he always does, like he always did, and I said, "Well, honey, just go lay up, lay up on the bed, and I'll take care of the dishes and everything. And did that come upstairs, and I noticed he was laying on the bed, and he was still in his jeans. He hadn't changed into something more comfortable. And I looked at him, and I said, "Are you okay? And he said, "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. And he jumped up and went and put on more comfortable clothing, and the only way I could really truly relax back then was to get into bed, and that came from taking care of mom and dad. I would come home and get into bed and pull the covers up under my chin, and about two hours later I could face the world because I was so drained, so I went down to see him. I was going to go to sleep for the evening, and went downstairs, and he looked at me, and he had a great big grin on his face, and he smiled, and he goes, "Honey, I feel better, " and I said, "Well, that's great. He goes, "Yeah. He drank some apple cider vinegar, and I felt really good, and he looked good. His eyes were bright, his color was good. So we had a ritual every night, and I'm so glad we had this ritual. I would sit on the couch, and we have two doggies, and I would sit between the doggies and pet them, and he would sit in his big red chair, and we would just talk. We would 

talk about our day, we would talk about what was coming up, and the whole bit. And then I always got up and went over to him and leaned over, and we'd look in each other's eyes and kiss and say I love you, so at that I went upstairs to go to bed, and about an hour later I felt him get in the bed with me, and I didn't want to wake myself up, so I didn't wake up to snuggle up to him or anything, I just kept sleeping, so the night's going on, and as you get older, sometimes you have to use a restroom at night. So I threw the covers back to go use the restroom, and noticed my husband was not in bed, and I thought, okay, well, he's in the bathroom, so I went to the other bathroom and used it, and came back, and he still wasn't in bed. I'm still not thinking anything, because I had gone into the restroom on other nights, and he would be in there, and he'd say, What are you going to do, woman, sit on me, and I would just start laughing and wait for him to come out this night when I called. Out to him, there were no words that came back to me, and I turned on a light, and I found him, and I apologized. This is the hard part. I found him on the floor, and he had passed away, and oh, I, I've seen near-death experiences, and I'm, I'm honey, you know, I get down there and I'm looking at it, and as he had probably died shortly after he came to bed, because he was, his body was cold, and he was red, and his body was red, and when Mom and Dad died, their bodies weren't - their skin was not red. And then I was stroking his hair, and saying, "Honey, come back, come back, dear, come back, you can do it, you don't have to, you don't have to go now, just come back. But he didn't, and so I lost my mom, my dad, and my husband in a 13 month period, and it took me to my knees. I had no desire to live. I had no desire, wanted to be gone. Those were the main support pillars in my life, and I thought, you know, just, just take me, God, just take me. I don't want to be here, I want to go, and I thought my kids will be okay, they're adults, they have careers. Well, that was very selfish of me, because they would have lost both their grandparents, their father, and their mother, so that would have been very, very hard on them. So I decided to stay, because my dogs - my dogs need to be taken care of, they're kind of special needs dogs, and it was incredible when he passed, my spirituality cracked wide open. It was like there was no, there was, there was nothing between us and behind the veil. I would see my husband all over the house. I saw him, how he looked when he had passed away, not, not when he was dead, but, you know, older, because we were getting older then. But then, as time went on, I would see him younger when we had first met, and oh, it was, it was wonderful, it was wonderful. I remember this man took very good care of me, and for 26 years he could do anything, he could make anything, he could build anything, he could repair anything, and for 26 years I was well taken care of. I honestly only changed the light bulb once during that time that we're married, and I only did it because he was out of town and I needed to see inside the closet, so and I knew he would be upset with me, and I, if I asked a neighbor to come change a silly little light bulb, and I remember one time I had to take apart something to clean it, an air filter, and I was taking it apart and doing all this stuff, and I was so proud of myself when I finished and I was done, and I kind of looked behind me, and I turned around, and he was sitting there on the piano bed with his hands on his knees, and he was so proud of me for doing something on my own. I would see him looking out of the bedroom window down when I was out in the yard, and during this time I was also not taking care of myself, I was surviving on chocolate tequila and coffee, that was my breakfast of champions until my hair started falling out, and I decided, okay, I need to start taking care of myself, at one time I kept his jammies on the bed for a long time, and I remember laying on his jammies, and I said, Why did you go? Why did you leave me? Because he was going to live till 90, and I told him I was going to check out between 68 and 72 and now he was gone, so I said, "Why did you leave me? And he told me three words. He said, "For your growth, which angered me. I was so angry with him. I said, "I can grow with you here. You didn't need to leave. But it wasn't true, because I would not have done what I have done since he passed away. I do listen to my heavenly team. I 

talk to them every day. My husband comes to me, my dad, my mom come to me. My sister also died a year after my husband died, so like I was the last one standing in the family, and she comes to me, and I was told, Karen, you need to write a book, and James Von Prague told me that years ago, and I thought, write a book, what on two failed marriages. What am I going to write a book on? Well, so I knew it was a book on spirituality. They said your story can help so many people, and I thought, if I can help one person with the way that I am experiencing life in this suffocating, brutal grief. I will do it. I will do it. So I started writing my first book, and everybody said, "Oh, that must have been cathartic. It must have helped heal you, and it didn't, because every time I had to go reread everything, I would cry all over again, and I became very good at crying, and I could, you know, type on the computer at the same time. I just let the tears cascade down my face, didn't even bother wiping them off. And so I thought people going through this, they need help. So I wrote my first book, and I was adamant that the publishers not change the title, because I felt this is how I felt, and the title is Whoever dies first wins. I felt Mom, Dad, my husband, they were in the heavenly realms, and they had one and I was left here behind to pick up the pieces to carry on and muddle through life and I will tell you that book when it was published, you know, when you put your blood, sweat, and tears into something, and you send it to editors, and you don't hear back from them, or oh no, thank you, and when it finally gets picked up, and someone sees a vision that you have created, and has put that book out, and it's helped so many people, and I hear from people about how it's helped, and I always thought, well, Who's going to buy a book from me? I'm nobody, you know. Who am I? I'm a retired school teacher and a mom. I am learning to quit minimizing myself, and it actually became an international bestseller, which I never expected. I just wanted it published and to help people. So that is how that book started. Along the way, my heavenly team told me, also, okay, you need to start a widow's group in your area, I thought, okay, alright, I can do that. That'll be fun. I'll do that. So I put a contest up on Facebook, and I said, "Hey, I'm going to start a club, and it's not a cool kids club, you know? I really don't want you to join the club unless you have to. And I explained it was a widow's club, and I wanted them to submit some names, so it could be kind of fun, and so people had all these different names submitted, and I decided upon Janda Sisters, because Janda is a word for widow, and now I don't even remember the country it's from, so we became the Janda sisters, and there were two other ladies that lost her husband around the same time I did, within a three month period, and I will tell you those three ladies, we all handled our grief differently, everyone handled it differently, and if you have suffered a loss that's really hard for you to deal with and to get over, all I want to do is tell you grieve however the hell you want, you grieve. Sorry,Darla 

Speaker Dar 

No, I thoroughly believe that. 

Speaker Karen

Yeah, don't let people, you know, tell you, well, you know, he's been gone three years, and, or, whatever they say, or.. and the worst thing anybody ever told me was he'd want. I need to be happy, and I never said this. I thought about it, but I never said it. Always thought, well, then he shouldn't have died, and but they meant well. So I never said anything like that, and that actually is one of the chapters in my book, because when parents die, it's like a natural progression as I get older, and people know what to say, but when you lose a spouse unexpectedly in the prime of their life. My husband had seen his doctor two weeks before, everything checked out, he was fine, and all of a sudden he's gone. One of the chapters that I wrote was what not to say to a widow and what to say to a widow and help out a widow because don't expect them to reach out to you and ask for help because they won't they it when you have that kind of debilitating grief whether you've lost a child or someone close to you, or it's like someone's taken an egg beater and just kind of swirled it around your brain, you are scrambled, you're scrambled, and you lose your memories, and time is non-existent, and and you forget what you say, and I know I've angered my son a lot, because I would say something to somebody and I'd say something to somebody else, and but it's a part of the grief, and it's a part of the grieving process, and you have to kind of get used to that. So we started our meeting once a month, we meet the first Wednesday of every month, we don't change that date, and the group has grown, and the group is diminished, you know. If someone passes away, then we honor them, and then people have joined. I also was close friends with the gal who runs the VA psychiatric division up at the hospital, and she said, 'You need to have some rules for your group, Karen. I said, 'Okay, let's come up with a set of rules, and I don't remember all of them, but one of them was no talk about politics, no talk about religion, and I take this little cute little stuffed monkey with me, and his name is Bob, and we sit down, and this group's been going on for six years now, and at the beginning of the group, I'll just say, okay, does anybody need any air time, and that means do you need to talk about what's going on with you, and so then people will tell me if they need airtime or something, and then when I, when it's their turn to talk, I give them Bob, and I have a little timer, and I set it for five minutes, because sometimes we can go on and on and on and on, but you know, then the whole group gets talking and helping that person, so it's been a really supportive group. It's been actually quite wonderful, and, and the ladies like taking pictures of Bob, you know, eating from their plates or them holding Bob. It's quite silly. Have you, Darla, have you seen Punch the Monkey on Facebook and Instagram? That little monkey, yeah, 

Speaker Karen 

yeah. So you kind of hand that, yeah. So you might say, God, yeah. So, 

Speaker Dar 

So that sounds like a beautiful group. I know some of our listeners can't wait to hear about your book and your new ones coming, and your mortality at the time of whoever dies first wins. Do you still believe that what are your beliefs in that area? 

Speaker Karen 

Well, Darla, I am a firm believer that before we come down into this earthly plane that we have made plans for our lessons that we're going to learn in our life, so I know that I took on the plan of losing, bam, bam, bam, all my family members for my growth, just like my husband told me, and I have a little sticky note he told me years ago, your life will be beautiful, and I kept thinking, okay, when's it going to be beautiful? I'm waiting, I'm waiting, but you know what, my life is morphed into so much, and I can help so many people, and to me, I got, I got it. Did, and I now come a very, come from a very vulnerable state, because I was very type A, and a Virgo, and a teacher, and things ran like clockwork, and now, now I don't sweat the small stuff, and I live a life of service and focus on love, compassion, and empathy, that is where I come from. So he truly was right. It was for my growth, you know. I know I can hardly wait to go home, but I am pleased with the life I have created since he has been gone, and I know he's so freaking proud of me too. 

Speaker Dar 

Yes, yes. So, tell us about your gift you have for our audience. 

Speaker Karen 

Okay, so we had talked about maybe doing a little quiz, and you know, for the audience members, because I'm going to gift my first book, “ Whoever dies first”, as an ebook and and I don't know when I was in school, and I would tell, hey, we're going to have a quiz, you know, the kids freeze, so we decided to do something a little differently. I'm going to provide my email, and then if you would just email me and say book request, and I have written down a number between one and 100 and whoever comes closest to that 

number without going over, I will send you an ebook. Happily, 

Speaker Dar 

Awesome. And we'll put that information for everyone in the show notes. We'll repeat this, so that you'll know, and this is much more fun to have a raffle than it is to take a quiz, says another teacher to a teacher. 

Speaker Karen 

I know you know you do that to kids and they freeze up, and one thing I want to mention too is I have been told to do so many things that I didn't want to do, but I did them because I knew I was supposed to do them, and I found courage in myself and strength that I never knew I had either, such as starting a YouTube channel and interviewing people and bringing them forward to show their talents and their gifts of being a healer or a psychic or a medium or anything like that, so it's been a rough ride, but it's been also a beautiful ride, and one other thing I want to mention, because I had a friend who lost his daughter horrifically, and he said it'll get better, and I kept saying year after year, when's it going to get better, you said it's going to be get better, when's it going to get better, and it was year four that I finally felt happy that I wasn't pretending that I finally felt happiness and joy in my life. 

Speaker Dar  

Beautiful, 

Speaker Karen  

it's not a quick one all the time. 

Speaker Dar 

Before we wrap up, could you share with us about love from Bono? 

Speaker Karen 

Yes, I do. I wanted to. This will be quick. I want to share two things. In the back of the book, he channeled a message to me, and I want to read what he wrote to me and the readers of my book. He said, I leave you, but I'm not gone. I'm the sunshine on your face, the love in your heart, the smile on your lips, and the laughter from your soul. I'm forever with you, and that's in the book. And Bono now crashes my channel on YouTube, and he always gives me a perfect message to give to the audience after my guest has spoken, and he said Bono, no matter what you experience, you can rise from the ashes. 

Speaker Dar 

Wow, what a beautiful message for our listeners. I want to thank you so much for being with us today, Karen, and for your vulnerability, telling your story as it is, and giving, giving other people who have had a series of family deaths similar to yours, you know that you can recover. You might not feel like it at the beginning, but you bring such hope to them, and I'm sure they'll look at your other books, The One in Progress. And the one before that angel paws on the Rainbow Bridge is also worth taking a look at, everybody. So, thank you for your time. 

Speaker Karen   

You're welcome. And, Darla, it has been an honor, a complete honor. Thank you so much.