As I Live and Grieve®
It’s time for grief to come out of the basement, or wherever we have stuffed it to avoid talking about it. When you suffer a loss you need support, comfort, and a safe place to heal. What you are experiencing is painful but normal, unique but similar, surreal but very, very real. As grief advocates we understand and want to provide support, knowledge and comfort as you continue to live and grieve. Host, Kathy Gleason; Producer, Kelly Keck. www.asiliveandgrieve.com
As I Live and Grieve®
Widows Who Wine
When Pam Baker's husband John was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer with no cure, their lives changed forever. For three years, she navigated the complex terrain of caregiving for a terminally ill spouse while raising four children, including two with cystic fibrosis. The journey transformed her understanding of grief and ultimately sparked a mission to create spaces where widows could genuinely connect.
"I didn't fit in the single women scene because they're talking about how much they hate their ex-husbands, and I didn't really fit in the couple scene because I'm like a third wheel," Pam explains. This realization led her to create Widows Who Wine (W-I-N-E), a community that started with a simple Facebook post and has grown to nearly 350 members. Unlike traditional grief support groups, which Pam found often kept people stuck in their grief, her community focuses on building friendships and finding joy while acknowledging the shared experience of loss. The concept proved so successful she's developed an app to help widows connect across geographic boundaries.
During our conversation, Pam shares the deeply personal coping mechanisms that helped her survive, including late-night crying sessions to specific songs that allowed her to empty her emotional "rain barrel." We explore the myth that anticipatory grief makes post-death mourning easier, the challenges of raising children through loss, and how Pam channeled her experience into practical resources like her book "Where's the Key to the Safe" and podcasts that preserve authentic stories of loved ones.
Connect with Pam at widowswhowine.com, find her app in major app stores, or read her book "Where's the Key to the Safe" available on Amazon. Her story reminds us that while grief never truly leaves us, we can learn to live alongside it in ways that honor our losses while creating space for new connections and even joy.
Copyright 2020, by As I Live and Grieve
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Welcome to as I Live and Grieve, a podcast that tells the truth about how hard this is. We're glad you joined us today. We know how hard it is to lose someone you love and how well-intentioned friends and family try so hard to comfort us. We created this podcast to provide you with comfort, knowledge and support. We are grief advocates, not professionals, not licensed therapists. We are you.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back in to another episode of as I Live and Grieve. Again, I want to say thank you for taking the time to stop what you're doing for a moment and tune in, and if you're listening on a mobile device, well, hopefully you can keep doing what you were doing before, whether it's driving or just being outside on the patio. Maybe you're walking your dog oh, I hope you're not exercising. That sounds so hard to do. But at any rate, here we are again with another episode, and another great guest With me today is Pam Baker. Hi, pam, thanks for joining me. Hello, thank you so much for having me. Oh, my pleasure. Certainly, we're going to talk about a variety of things today. Who knows where the conversation is? But to get us started, would you just kind of give a little bit of your background, your story, for the listeners and let them know who is Pam?
Speaker 3:Who is Pam? Oh, my word. Well, I live north of Atlanta, in Georgia, so we'll start with that. North of Atlanta, in Georgia, so we'll start with that. I have four kids who are almost 23, 19, and 16. And I lost my husband to glioblastoma about three and a half years ago, so it's been an interesting few years with that journey. Before that, my kids my oldest two have cystic fibrosis, so that took up a big part of our lives too, with john and I were both big advocates and fundraisers in that world. We were a really awesome team, quite frankly, in that world. So I have carried on in that and yeah, so that's the nutshell version.
Speaker 2:Yeah one of the things pam and I found out very quickly is that we have a parallel in our life in that both of our husbands acquired glioblastomas and both have now died from it. Tom's glio was from his exposure to Agent Orange. You knew it Well, the doctors are sure, because he served in Vietnam as a combat medic and had a certain amount of exposure to Agent Orange and in treating people as well. So the doctors were convinced that that's where his came from. Wow, Although that's not the only source for glios.
Speaker 2:As we all know, cancer is a vicious critter, I guess I don't know what else to call it. It does have a life of its own, and I know when Tom received his diagnosis, I was there with him in the hospital room and the doctor said I can tell you three things about glios. The first is that it's an extremely aggressive type of cancer. The second is that it's rather unpredictable. It can be different for every person that has it. It will respond a different way to different medications, different treatments. You never really know if what you're going to try is going to work. It's unpredictable. And the third thing if he took a huge pause is that there's absolutely no cure. Yeah, exactly, and then with a couple of I'll talk to you later the Roman left us to deal with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's pretty brutal, it is. When my kids were diagnosed with cystic fibrosis we got that same. Yeah, it's pretty brutal, it is. When my kids were diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, we were. We got that same thing. There's no cure. And at the time they were, Gavin was two and a half and I was pregnant with Jake. It's genetic. So we found immediately you know I had an amnio to find out if Jake would be with it and sure enough he was in that wolf, those words doesn't matter if it's CF or or glio or you're just like. You know. It's really hard to hold on to any kind of morsel of hope with those words. Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:Yet we still try and the doctors still try to fill us with hope. You know, for every treatment they, oh you know, they take another x-ray and they say, oh, you know, it looks like it's holding its own after the surgery. And I'd get the x-ray report to the portal and I'd start reading it. And you know I've always been good in math. So I would take the dimensions, because they would always measure the math and I would take the dimensions and my older daughter, stephanie, and I would figure it out, say, did you get this? Yeah, that's what I got. It's not getting smaller, no, it's growing. Even though the doctor was trying to fill us with hope everything looks good was growing again.
Speaker 3:You know there's been two glial is just such a beast where I use the word beast because it's such a beast and it just the way it tentacles into everything. Never get all of it, no matter what you do, like we've done john's. He had two surgeries and they were like we got a hundred percent. I mean they said yeah, knowing the yeah is gone of course.
Speaker 2:But yeah, those little arms, those little tentacles are still there, brutal, working their magic and uh, you know, you're just left to deal with it so how long did you have with john now after you got the diagnosis?
Speaker 3:So they gave him 12 to 14 months because of where his was located and it was a right frontal lobe. So we were fortunate in the sense that it wasn't in really any section of his really debilitating and they could really get in there and get a chunk of the resection done. He lived three years. We did a couple of clinical trials and a couple rounds of chemo and and and Optune. We did all, we tried all the tricks. Yeah, we did Optune as well. Yep, that was interesting, Interesting thing. But yeah, he was very healthy for a good chunk of it too, I will say.
Speaker 3:He ended up having a seizure while he was driving one day, though chunk of it too, I will say. He ended up having a seizure while he was driving. One day, though, and got in a really brutal accident. I had to cut out of the car and broken bone, injured lungs. You know that to me was like his turning point where he says I'm going to do this and you could just thought it was so deflating for him like doing all the things he could to then have that happen. So mentally it took him out a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Once Tom got the diagnosis and had the surgery, he was told he would never drive again. Oh wow, from that point on I was his chauffeur everywhere and that course changed my daily routine, because it was, you know, for a while. There were daily blood draws and everything like that. Just, you do what you have to, you know and you cope as best you can. Tom and I had eight months after his diagnosis. They didn't give us any prediction, they just said you don't know that, no, they wouldn't put it out there and in truth I didn't see him start to deteriorate until he got to the radiation point. Oh, oh interesting.
Speaker 2:The radiation, I think, is what weakened him considerably and he just became totally different, such that after a fall the thing that would really take him to the hospital was that he would fall at home and then they would back to the hospital. And one trip especially, he was admitted to the hospital for observation and just some more evaluation, and a med student was talking to him, talking to me, and then the doctors came in and said well, you know, we think you can go home. And the med student stood up and said pardon me, but I don't think he's going home. Wow, a student. And the doctors, you know, looked at him and and he said it is no longer safe for him to be home because every time he falls he takes her with him. Oh, and he said so it is no longer safe for her to be giving care that was pretty brave and bold of this.
Speaker 2:I know it really was, but I was so grateful because I couldn't utter those words myself. I knew it in my heart and I wanted at that point I wanted a different solution because I knew that I couldn't take much more but hospital but a veteran's nursing home and that's where he spent his remaining time. But the burden of caregiving is one thing, but then when the end comes and your husband died, they talk about anticipatory grief. Do you feel that any of the grief you endured before his death made it any less difficult for you?
Speaker 3:after he died? That's a really good question. Thinking back on that time, it's so interesting and I'm sure you felt the same. It's brutal and I, you know, I'm grateful for the time that we had. But I will say that in that time, you know, like you said exactly, you become their. Everything, the full focus of everything goes to them, and you know, I have four kids that were. Two were in college at the time, jake wasn't, I had one fully in college and my youngest was only nine years old. So it required a lot too, and they all got the back burner because everything went fully to.
Speaker 3:John. And so, and then you know the moments of resentment that I felt I can't voice because you're like I'm not going to cause a fight with my husband. He has brain cancer, that's right, you can't. There are so many layers of emotions, right. So you're like your fear, your grief, your anger, your frustration, your resentment, it's all buried, because, I mean, I had to be the one when he did have the moments of despair, like I and you know he'd go into dark places, you know I'd let him there a little bit and then I'd have to be the cheerleader to bring him back up, like, come on, get the gloves, let's go, let's go, we're not this way. And so there's so much. You know, my own health honestly really deteriorated in that three years. Right, I had a lot of wine, I'll tell you that right now and so I had that, so I wasn't sleeping. You know the worry the cortisol.
Speaker 3:you're like living for so long. Yeah, were you working at the time? I did work. I wasn't. I was always a stay-at-home mom. But interestingly, my second child was not in college. He was in school but he went to boarding school. But it was only an hour from me and so I worked at the boarding school as a volunteer all the time. And then they had a position like the parent relations coordinator with suddenly. So they were like come and do this job, because I knew how to do, I hired her. I was on the fire and so I did. It was interesting because it was not long after John was diagnosed that they asked me to do that and it, you know, it was like an hour and 10 minute drive, but I only a few days a week. So I never worked until, like, he was diagnosed. But I suddenly had a job. It was very, but it probably saved my sanity some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my work became my Haven when I couldn't work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cause in the beginning, once he got to a certain point, I couldn't do that anymore. But yeah, yeah it was. There's so many layers, so that's a good question. Back to your question about anticipatory. I don't know, I think I was so in the weeds with all the emotions and then it was survival after he did pass, you know, still again having all my kids and and just survival. Thankfully he left us. I mean, I've met so many widows now I told you I started a group here Widows who Want N-W-I-N-E of course, and so I've met, I've had the privilege of meeting a lot of widows. And so many women are left in financial distress after a person dies and that just adds a whole other layer, right, so grateful we were left in a position that I didn't have to worry about, that I didn't have to sell the house, didn't have to go get a job, didn't have to do any of those things. So thankfully, cause that just adds a whole nother layer, but there's still just survival mode. So, yeah, I think I realized he died in November.
Speaker 3:And then I remember going to a fitness class. You know, back then it was still COVID and the end of COVID. I was in a workout class, but it was like a one. It was one of those. It was hot work, so it was like a sauna room and they would one or two people in the room at a time and I was in there and it was a screen, a virtual coach, right. And then every class ended with like a seated meditation where it said focus on what brings you joy, what brings you joy, and just sit. And I was nothing. I have no joy. Yeah, there was nothing and I couldn't. That was when I realized I was like you need to get a grip and thankfully it wasn't too long after he died, but it was, you know, six months or whatever. But I was like you've got to pull yourself up here and find some happiness in your life and find at least try to start working my way back there yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it sounds to me like the simple answer to the question did the anticipatory grief phase make your post-death grief any less difficult? It sounds to me like the answer is no. Yeah, that's really what it sounds like. Yeah, so to me like the answer is no. Yeah, that's really what it sounds like. Yeah, so to me, because I experienced something similar in that when I walked out to the parking lot the morning that Tom died, you know, after everything was kind of finalized and I had his last few possessions from his room and everything on my way out to the car, I had this sudden moment of a burden being lifted off my shoulders and I thought, it's true, anticipatory grief takes care of that, because I knew this day was coming. Now the day has arrived. So, yeah, I'm okay, I can just move on.
Speaker 2:And then, 20 minutes later, I'm home, I'm dissolved in tears and sobs and just could not put it back together and I thought wait a minute, what happened? I felt like I'd been cheated. You know, they told me that it was supposed to be easier. Well, it's not. I think all it really does is just extend. I think it's extend the grief, or in some ways, you just grieve, you reach a break and then you start to grieve all over again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Right back at the beginning, a different type, maybe you know, the anxiety, grief and all that, that anticipation.
Speaker 3:Like you said, it's like you do. I remember when cause right after he was diagnosed, we went to the beach, we went to Charleston my oldest was at the college of Charleston and it's like the whole family rallied and we had everybody there and I just remember sitting on the beach, like being so sad for him in this that I kept being like feeling, imagining what he was feeling, right, like what if this is my last time? Cause he was late, we were leaving the beach and going straight to brain surgery. You don't know what's going to happen when they go. No, you don't. I all I can can because he's sitting here thinking what if this is my last time looking at the ocean? What if this is the last time, well, sure, playing on the beach with my kids? What if, you know? And oh, that was so hard, just and you're thinking the same thing.
Speaker 2:You're trying to put in his perspective?
Speaker 3:yeah, but it was really in your thoughts as well yeah, sure, and, like the kids, don't even know what's happening. They knew of the diagnosis but nobody knows and just thinking how brutal, like how it's going to hit the kids and, oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 2:How did the kids handle that three-year period where he was ill?
Speaker 3:You know each differently, of course. My oldest was, you know, pretty far into college and you know pretty far into college and, uh, you know he's an oldest, he's a firstborn, so he just took care of business and did his thing. And my second one floundered and he still, kind of honestly, he, you know, went off to college during COVID and then that didn't work and came home and then he went back again and then John was diagnosed, through all of this, but then, you know, went first semester, came home, second semester, went back again, and then john was diagnosed, through all of this, but then, you know, he went first semester, came home. Second semester went back in the fall, but that's when john was actively dying, and that's the fall, yeah, home. And then, you know, it was like back and forth, right still in that place, he's, yeah, be emotionally, but he's still like kind of fragmented, yeah, yeah and then my daughter went off the rails.
Speaker 3:She was. He was so tight with all of the kids, but it was the and they did volleyball. He coached all of her stuff, they, she's a. He was a volleyball player and he coached and he went to college where we went to college where we met.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, are called the volleyball for him and so she went off the rails. She was a disaster, it was hard. And then my youngest you know, I had him in therapy the whole time because I could control that. The rest of them were teenagers. This one I'm like we're going in and yeah, so we started it from nine when, yeah it, and he just stayed. I think that just helped him so much because for a couple years after john died so he was like I don't think I need this anymore. I'm like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you had multiple layers of grief, because you not only had your own to deal with, but while you were caring for john, he was grieving as well. He was grieving the life he was no longer going to have. So you were grieving your loss, you were grieving his loss, and then you were grieving each of your children's losses as well, and women are especially good at stuffing their own needs and emotions and feelings. Did you have a point in time where it looked like your kids had kind of settled a bit and all of your emotions just kind of came right back in full force?
Speaker 3:I have a habit that I learned with my children, because you suffer grief when you, your children, are diagnosed with a disease where they're probably outlive you there. I am just a I power through things until I was compared to like a rain barrel, and when the barrel like gets so full you can't do one more thing, it's going to collapse and just fall. I I've always I trained myself and it just works for me.
Speaker 3:I will. In the middle of the night when everybody's gone to sleep, I have like certain songs that I listen to different songs for John than I did for my children and I would just go and like put headphones on in the dark of the night when nobody was around, and just cry and cry and cry, and cry and cry and cry. No more tears left. And then I'd be like, okay, the rain barrels empty. Now I can get back to life. That's how I've always done it. So I did the same, I did the same, I. When John was diagnosed, I just there was a song that I just used. Oh, it was terrible, it was. I just struck me. I was like, oh, my God, I couldn't remember what it was, but it just came into my head. Chicago, if you leave me now, oh yes.
Speaker 3:I don't know why that song was. I mean, it's obviously a breakup song, but I would just go in my in a room.
Speaker 2:I just provoked the right emotion when you needed it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it did, and I would just listen to it over and over again Like come back. Okay, yeah, I'm back and do it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, now, when you talk about self-care and everything, there are those that would think inflicting pain on yourself is not self-care. But you inflicted that pain so that you would cry, so that you would release the emotion. Yes, and it was that release, that was the self-care.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the pain, that's true. Yeah, it was just something that I you know I'm just kind of known as being a tough nugget and I'll. I've just been that way my whole life and I will. But I understand the value of it and feeling me, but I'm also a little bit of a control freak, so I control when they happen.
Speaker 2:But kind of like ripping the Band-Aid off. You know it's going to hurt a lot when you rip it off, but afterward there's going to be some relief, that's right, and afterward the wound will heal a little better. So I just wanted to clarify that for our listeners that were thinking well, why would you want to make yourself cry? But that's why you explained it very well with the analogy of the rain barrel as well. Now you mentioned something a little bit ago about a group called Women who Wine, but it's W-I-N-E.
Speaker 3:Tell me about that. Women who Wine? Yes, so when John died I went to all of. I up catholic and, but I don't have a strong affinity for religion. I'm very spiritual and I believe in a higher power, but I don't anyway. It's a whole another topic. But I tried all of the grief shares and the all the things and I tried my sister would go with me and even the ones that said they weren't like super churchy, but it was like they all offered that same thing and it was all like.
Speaker 3:I just felt like people were so like stuck in their grief and I didn't see people trying to move forward with it and and learn to live with it in a healthy way, and so none of that's what I was looking for. I tried a lot so I just gave up and I got introduced to someone who is amazing. She's a certified grief counselor with. The program is called grief recovery and that's exactly what you do. You work through it, you work through all the things and you just come to a healthy place of living with it. You're never going to, it's never going to be gone. You're going to have the grief for your life and so you do figure out how to live with it in a healthy way, and so I still work with her. She's a life coach too, so we don't talk about grief so much anymore. Sometimes we do when it comes up. One of my friends described it as like the waves like you don't know when the waves are going to hit. They're going to hit sometime and they will, and in just over time then maybe the waves get a little smaller and they're not like slamming around anymore, but they'll got to know how to handle it. And so I started working with her.
Speaker 3:But then, North of Atlanta, it's big area in the suburbs and we have this great big mom's Facebook group and some I kept seeing several women that were younger women too lost my husband, Are there any resources for me? And every single person just listed those same exact groups and I was like, oh, like there's gotta be something else. And so I just kind of get my head spinning obsessively sometimes, and it was obsessive because I just was like I got to do something. I got to do something Right, I wanted it to be. Those are. They serve their purpose, right, they serve their purpose. They're great for people who it matches and I had discovered because at this point. It was February 2023, John died in November 2021.
Speaker 3:And what y'all discover, I think, as widows, is your friends rally around you a lot the couple friends and all that stuff but eventually everybody goes back to live in their lives. And you're now. You don't really fit in the single women scene because they're talking about how much they hate their ex-husbands and you don't really fit in the couple scene because you're like a third wheel, a fifth wheel, whatever. So where's your space? Right, my space on the couch watching Netflix with my sister. So I was like there's got to be something for us to live a shared experience. So right, but I wanted it to have that social vibe. It's not, but it's a. It's a group of women that support each other when the grief hits.
Speaker 3:But that's not our point, our point of have. I call it finding the best friends you never knew you needed, because we just are. Everybody is. It's such an easy relationship in most cases because of that shared experience. You know right, just put it out there on that facebook page, in my own facebook page, and said I'm, I'm starting this group called widows who whine, and if anybody wants to come, just come on over to my house. And 14 women showed up that first night. Oh my gosh, yeah, and it was a pouring horribly torrential rain and I must have a lot of friends on Facebook.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 3:I do that. Roswell moms group has like 9,000 members.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:I, 14 women showed up and and, uh, yeah, and now you know, I plan one social thing a month and sometimes we do, like I did, a home maintenance one-on-one so we could all learn how to take care of our houses proactively.
Speaker 3:Planning one-on-one and stuff like that we do, but mostly social. We do fun stuff wine tastings or ax throwing or pottery, you know all kinds of fun stuff. But the other cool thing is now, with all these women in it there's 300 and almost 350 women. There's zhong and there's book clubs and there's cornhole groups and there's, you know, widows who golf, widows who dine, widows who all the stuff like oh my goodness, offshoots of yeah, that's incredible, so fun. And so then I had all these people reaching out to me in other States, cause I do have a big Facebook presence and you'll have something like this in Philly or New York or Oklahoma or Florida, and so that got me thinking again. So I actually have been working with an app developed for almost two years now and it's if I keep wanting it to be perfect before I fully launch it.
Speaker 3:it's in the doors but, I'm not like pushing it hard right now because I'm still tweaking. They're still like, oh, we don't like that and I don't like this, and I just need to just do it. But so that you know we'll be coming out. Well, it's out, but it'll be. And is that also? Women who wine, widows who Line In, and that's the whole. It's actually very much designed like a dating app, because you put on your things you like and build a profile and you can do the little geographical thing, like if I'm going to LA, I can look up in any widow area and I can just go and you know you have a built-in group wherever you go. Wow, yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 2:It's really cool, wow, and I also know that you have written a book.
Speaker 3:Yes, what's about that? Yeah, so my husband was a financial advisor and obviously we knew it wasn't going to end well when he got diagnosed with glioblastoma and he was very proactive. We had a team, we had a CFP lawyer all the things. He had a full team at his office. We had a CFP lawyer all the things. He had a full team at his office. And when he died, there was still things that we didn't have set up right, because you don't know until you know, and a lot of things.
Speaker 3:However, the title of the book is called Where's the Key to the Safe, because I didn't know where the freaking key to the safe was. I was like we had three years to plan for this. How do I not know where the freaking key is? And you know that was one of the things. I was like man, how do people do this? If it's another one of my brain gets going? I knew it was coming Like we knew you had three years to plan and a team and a successful business, like all these things. If your husband dies in a car accident on the way to work, you know how do you do this. And so my nephew actually worked for my husband. He's also a financial planner. He went through all of it with me when John died and so he co-wrote the book with me and it's so awesome. It just launched a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3:And when John died I'm not a fan of any of the financial stuff and he tried and tried and tried and I was like, no, that's your job and I'm lowered. But I started reading everything when he died because I didn't want anybody to take advantage of me. I was going to know my stuff. Well, those books are so boring and I was just like, oh my God, the topic is boring, but also the writing is boring, the visuals are boring. So I wanted my book to be really pretty and the fonts to be aesthetically pleasing, and we have graphics. One of my nephew's friends is our graphic designer. She did some graphics to make it all really. It's meant to be really pleasing to the eye, very easy, and the whole vibe is meant to feel like you're sitting down with your girlfriend having coffee. And I have a joke. I'm like when I was pregnant I read the book um, girlfriend's guide to pregnancy. I'm like, yes, girlfriend's guide to widowhood, guide to your spouse dying.
Speaker 3:I wanted it to have that vibe, though that you're hanging out with your friends and talking about things, and so each chapter we cover everything from like words and keys to the safe to right continuation plan, because we did have to figure out how to do. Yeah, and so his name is Cameron and obviously I'm Pam, so every chapter it starts with Pam and I give an anecdotal story about that particular topic, if it's or umbrella policies or you know whatever.
Speaker 3:Pam comes in and gives the professional perspective. It's really cool. And then we have a workbook that goes along with it.
Speaker 3:So the ideally if you're both work your way through the whole book, you can literally like take that workbook to your whatever have it proactively so that when your person dies, whether it's a sibling or a parent or anyone you're financially connected to, you can focus on honoring them and focus on your grief versus the business of death, because it's so impossible to make those kinds of decisions when you're in fog. It's impossible. So that's the whole point in writing the book and gotten really great feedback from people on it and how easy it easy it is to read. And my very first and I got from a friend of a friend was oh, my god, I feel like I'm sitting down having coffee with her. I was like, yay, exactly what you wanted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's super. That's super. Well, I know it's going to seem like you have done nothing but talk, but we both talk. Yes, yes, we did. And this is the point in the podcast where I turn the microphone over to my guest and let my guest just speak directly to the listeners without me interrupting with questions. So I'm going to pass the microphone to you. Make sure you tell people where they can find your book. Repeat the title, tell them a little bit about the new app so they can start looking for it, and just you know the floor is yours.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, thank you so much. First of all, I'm really. This has been such a pleasure just talking with you and getting to know you and just being able to share my story. I just think it's, it's an honor. So, thank you, I will say okay. So widows who wine I have a website, widows who winecom, and you can find everything there. And the widows who wine app is in the app store, in both Google and the app store, and what else I have.
Speaker 3:I actually just started a podcast of my own, and so I have two. I do is telling you about my coffee, cancer and cocktails, where we right, we chronicled our entire journey with glioblastoma, from diagnosis until the end, and not into a podcast. That's already in all the platforms Spotify, apple and everything. And then I launched another one last week called the lost love stories, and that's really about I've talked to a lot of widows about this too People, after you know not very long, stop talking about your person and cause they just don't know how to talk about the people who are dead, and when they do, they sort of glorify everything, so the real person is lost. So this podcast will talk not just to widows, but like my sonake is going to be my first guest, actually did an intro episode last week and jake lost his best friend, blake, in a snowboarding accident. So we're gonna, yeah, so you know he lost his dad, yeah, and it's terrible. So we, it's just anyone. You've lost just a chance to chronicle that story the the good, the ugly, the challenges, the things you know what that's going to be about. And then, of course, my book where's the key to the ugly, the challenges, the things you know what that's going to be about? And then, of course, my book where's the key to the safe, which is on Amazon and pretty much anywhere you can buy books.
Speaker 3:Now, you just have to be super careful and because it's Amazon, you have to be specific. Until I have 100 reviews, which I think we're at about 50 something. When you get to a hundred, you go into their algorithm, but until then you have to be specific. And if you put, where is the key to the safe has to be where's the workbook? Is there too, but it has to be where's the key to the safe workbook? Yeah, so specific, but hopefully we'll be up to our 100 reviews soon and we'll be in there. But we did hit the bestseller on it. We did oh, that's excellent, the bestseller and the new released bestseller and all that stuff. So we got that stuff.
Speaker 2:So I think that's it, my podcast all right, my busy lady, kudos to you, kudos, um, for your legacy work. Uh, because that's what it is. I didn't know your book, the community of widows who whine, your app, everything Kudos, yeah. So, listeners, this is the time, of course, now you know. What's coming next is I have to sign off, and I have to tell you that, as you know, I say every time that the contact information, links and everything for Pam will be in the podcast notes. So don't worry, if you didn't have a pen handy, you don't have to listen to the whole episode again. I wouldn't do that to you unless you want to listen to it again. You can just look at the podcast notes and you'll find all the contact information there, and they should all be live links so you can just click on them and it'll take you right to her website, and I encourage you to do that.
Speaker 2:Pam has great information. I have no doubt that her book is delightful to read. I think you know the one career that you might have after you go through grief period and dealing with paperwork and all that is. You probably could become a detective or a personal investigator, because that's what it winds up being. You have to do so much work in that vein, remember also to take care of yourselves.
Speaker 2:You heard Pam's story of her self-care sobbing, crying in the middle of the night in response to a song, a song with a theme, one for her husband, one for each child, things like that. It may sound like you're inflicting pain, but you're not. You're prompting a release of emotions, and we all know that the more times you tell the story, the more times you cry, yell, scream, get the emotions out of your body, the easier it is to move forward, and move forward is what we all need to do, for sure. So take care of yourselves, and I hope you'll find time again to come back for the next episode, as we all continue to live and grieve. Thanks again, pam. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening with us today. Do you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or do you have a question from one of our episodes? Please email us at info at asiliveandgrievecom and let us know. We hope you will find a moment to leave a review, send an email and share with others. Join us next time as we continue to live and grieve together.