What does a man do when he feels like he wants to quit after his wife and his newborn child die? How do you begin the monumental task of finding purpose when the world doesn’t give you the opportunity to cry and grieve? This is the journey of James D. Price, a widower who transformed his deepest pain into a calling to help others. He shares his raw, transparent story of isolation, faith, and ultimately, building a community for grieving men. Let’s get into this conversation.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.  

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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A Widower’s Journey To Finding Purpose After Unspeakable Loss With James D. Price

What does a man do when he feels like he wants to quit after his wife and his newborn child die? What does a man do when the world doesn’t give him the opportunity to cry and grieve? What does a man do when he feels alone and isolated in searching for answers? This is a conversation we’re going to have with Mr. James Price to answer these questions from his perspective and more. Let’s get into this conversation.

James, welcome to the widowhood.

How are you? Thanks for having me.

“Thanks for having me at the widowhood.” Does that sound weird coming off the tongue, or does that sound natural? What does that mean for you?

It is both. It feels a little weird, but it feels natural as well. It has been eight years for me, so it feels natural. It’s not too bad. I understand if someone thinks it’s a little too much or a little weird, but it’s okay.

You and I are on the same timeline of eight years. I wanted to have this conversation with you for a lot of different reasons. One, you have been part of helping me build this community. You lead our men’s only grief support meeting. Your journey has changed, I’m guessing, over the years with your children and where it is. It’s important to bring your voice to this conversation.

It’s an absolute honor to be here with you and to be a part of what you’re doing. You have created an outlet that you’ve created to allow people to be able to express grief. Many people don’t have that. You have tapped into something that’s needed in society. Being able to help work with you on this is such an honor.

Thank you for saying that. You mentioned that people do not have a safe space to be able to share how they feel. What does that look like? Not giving people’s names because you’re working with men, but what have you learned about other people’s journeys in grief and not having that support?

What I’ve learned is a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that people do other things that’ll help them deal with grief. They turn to alcohol. They turn to sex. We’re all adults here.

That’s why it’s called Real Talk.

They turn to sex. They turn to drugs. When I learned, I’m like, “Everybody does not have the same mindset that I have.” This helped me understand that we are individuals, so we face things a little bit differently. I would tell them, “That is not the way to go. You don’t want to make your greedy period worse. Drugs and alcohol will not make it better.” That was something that I learned as well.

It took me for a loop because I didn’t know that people would willingly turn to drugs. I could see alcohol. The stigma in the community that I grew up in was that you stay away from drugs, but people were turning to drugs. I was trying to do the best I could to help them. I’m like, “Don’t make it worse because that’s all it will do. It will make your life much worse.”

I say to them, “Focus on why you’re still here. You’re still here for a reason. You don’t have to say, ‘My life is over. I’m done. I can’t do this.’ I felt that way, too. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to go through this. I don’t want to do any of this. I don’t want to be a single dad. I don’t want to do any of this stuff.’ If you allow it to overwhelm you, you’ll be in a world of trouble.”

Thank you for sharing that. For the people that are meeting you for the first time, would you give a little bit of your journey, your wife, and how you became a widower? I want to share that for people to understand, you are not doing this as a foreigner. You’re not doing this as someone who has not traveled this very difficult road.

Loss Of Wife & Newborn Daughter, & Decision On Organ Donation

One of the things that I recognized when I first became a widower was that people were coming to me and they didn’t understand what I was going through, but their intentions were good. They had good intentions. They were trying to help me. I also recognized there wasn’t much they could do to help. My late wife was a wonderful woman. I didn’t even think I deserved this woman. I was like, “She is amazing. She likes me?” She was a wonderful woman. This caught me off guard. This caught everybody off guard. I didn’t see this coming.

She passed away while giving birth to our third daughter. Our 3rd daughter also, unfortunately, passed away 2 months later because she went several minutes without oxygen to her brain. She developed tremendous brain damage. They told me, “We can keep her alive, but she’ll be a vegetable.” I didn’t want my child growing up that way. I had to deal with that as well.

I wanted her life to mean something. I wanted it to have meaning, so I said, “There are a lot of sick kids that need help and that need organs. What I can do is to honor my baby girl, Sarah. I can allow them to have her own organs, which will probably help another kid. Another parent doesn’t have to go through what I’m going through right now.

I told them, “You guys can take all her organs. Take whatever you need that will help another kid.” I felt a sense of pride in helping another kid. I know that if my baby girl could talk, she would’ve told me, “Good job, Dad. That’s what I imagined.” I felt the same thing with my wife. I felt that she would’ve been very proud of what I did. Other people told me, “That’s amazing. I can’t believe you’ve done that.” I’m like, “I can’t either, but I felt it was the good and right thing to do to try to help somebody else, so they don’t have to go through what I’m going through.”

Turning Point: Finding Strength & Purpose (“Why”) Through His Daughters

It took me at least six months before I realized what had happened to me. It took about six months for me to say, “My wife is gone. My daughter is gone. What next?” Honestly, I wanted to give up. I remember being outside. It was a full winter night in Metro Detroit. I remember going out to my backyard to throw trash out. I looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful sky. It was dark, but the sky was still blue, and there were stars everywhere. I said, “I want to give up. I don’t want to do this.”

Thank God it wasn’t suicide or anything like that. It was that I didn’t want to do this journey that I was on. The moment that I said that, it was like God showed me I have to be strong for my daughters. I could see their faces right in front of me. They were only 7 and 4 at the time. I said, “I have to be strong for my babies.” They helped me tremendously. They were stronger than I was.

Family and friends were coming to me and saying, “We’ll take the girls for a few days or a week so you can try to cope with what you’re going through and what’s going on in your life.” I appreciated what they were doing, but I told them, “I’m going to let them stay with me. I need them. Their strength is helping me. If it weren’t for my babies, I don’t know where I would be.”

When people come to me and say, “I turned to this,” or, “I turned to that,” I understand that. Men that I looked at as strong men, these men were weak at this moment. They were very vulnerable. They would say, “I can’t do this,” and I understand that. I’m grateful that I’m able, because of my unfortunate experience, to help others.

I try to encourage people, like, “Don’t give up. You don’t have to give up because you have people who look at you. You have people who need you. It’s bigger than just you. You don’t want to give up. I have my children. I couldn’t give up. You have children as well. They’re not as young as my children were, but they’re still your children. They still love you. They still need you. You want to represent them. When times get tough in life, because they will, you want to show them, “Dad didn’t give up when he lost Mom. He didn’t give up when he lost my sister.” That shows them that I’m not a quitter. I won’t give up. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make life better for them. It’s not about me. It’s about them.

Thank you for being so transparent. You shared so much that I want to go back and unpack some of that, if I may. I want to talk about the idea that your wife or your daughter would be proud of you. I often hear people, and maybe you do, too, speak about some of the choices they make in the mindset of wanting to make their loved one proud with the life that they’re living.

That is big for me. I’ve learned that during this process, I have to give myself a reason to even push through. We call it a why. What is your why? I said, “My daughters. That is my why. I’m not my own why. I can’t be my own why. My daughters are my why.” Thinking about it, I’m understanding at this moment how important they are to my life. Having them blessed me tremendously.

I thought about it and said, “If I were a single man and we didn’t have any kids yet, would it be tougher?” I couldn’t answer that. I don’t know if it would be tougher for me or if I would give up. I said, “If I didn’t have my daughters, I would’ve moved to the Dominican Republic or something and stayed there forever. I would have married a woman there and had kids there,” but I’m grateful for my daughters. They gave me a why.

I still want to encourage people who may not have kids. I met a young gentleman. He and his wife never had kids. They had a wonderful, beautiful relationship. He may not have that why as far as his kids, but there is something that everyone has. That’s the reason you’re here. You have to find out why you are still here and go from that. Don’t say, “I don’t have it.”

Someone told me that as well. Someone said, “You got a church family. You got your kids. You got family and friends. That’s why you can get through this. I don’t have any of that, so what am I supposed to do?” I said, “That’s a tough situation to be in. I understand that, but look at this. Even though I do have a support system and I do have family and friends who love me, they are not the ones who got me through that. It was my faith.”

If we’re going to be transparent and real with it, everybody may not have the same type of faith that I had. I have to be real whenever I talk to people. It was my faith. It was my belief in Almighty God. It was my belief in his son, Jesus Christ. That’s the flat-out truth and all it is to it. That helped me tremendously. It helped me understand that there is more to life than what I want. There is more to life than what I feel I need.

I have my children I can live for. I have my future to live for. I know that I don’t want to leave all of that on the table and give up. If I had a pet, I would try to live for my pet. That would be my why. It has to be something that encourages you and inspires you to push forward. Once you get a hold of that, there’s no telling where you can go.

Thank you for the transparency. I love that your faith is your grounding rod, but it’s not a requirement for anybody that you support. You serve them out of your faith, but it doesn’t have to be a requirement that the men who are coming to this group have to profess that they have a relationship with God. That is the beauty of Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. We are here to support anybody in their moment of grief and on that journey.

For you, it was six months. For somebody else, it may be four years of being in this wilderness mentally or this grief fog and trying to come to terms with what has happened. I like that you made the separation between not having suicidal ideations, but not wanting to do this journey. You weren’t actively looking to remove yourself from this world, but the thought of living in this world without your daughter and your wife in this version of life seems so draining in heart.

You hit it right on the head. It seemed draining. I was like, “I don’t want to do this. This is too much for anyone to bear.” I’m questioning life. I’m questioning everything, like, “Why on earth would this happen to me?” I even went through the stage of blaming myself. My late wife used to always be on me. She would say, “You’ve got to start eating healthier.”

She was a stay-at-home mom, and I was always gone. I was out working my butt off. I was like, “I’ve got to take care of my family. I got to give them what they need.” I was being very unhealthy. I was eating out, grabbing a Whopper from Burger King or a Big Mac from McDonald’s. I was grabbing whatever I could get a hold of and eating unhealthily. My weight ballooned. I was gigantic. I got up to 360 pounds. It was bad. I’m not that tall. I’m only 5’10”. I don’t care if I were 7’10”. 360 pounds is not healthy.

My wife was all over me like, “I’m going to start making baked chicken or baked food because this is getting bad.” I didn’t even realize how bad it was. She meant so much to me. She paid all the bills. She managed everything. I didn’t even know how much we had. I was like, “How much do we have? Can I borrow $20?” That’s how it was. I didn’t know how much anything was. I didn’t know how much we paid for lights, gas, or anything. It was a comfort that I had with my life. I was like, “I’m comfortable with this. I’m good. It’s all right. We don’t have a lot of money.”

You were like, “We got us some peace, and that means more than any dollar.”

I was like, “We don’t have a lot of money, but we’re good.” All of a sudden, all of that changed. I’m like, “What is going on? What am I supposed to do?” You have to find something that will give you meaning in life. Once you find that, then you can push through. Something else I’ve learned is that time does heal wounds. For me, it did.

I’m going to challenge you on this. This is what I’m going to challenge you on. If everything remained the same and time passed, would it make a difference? If you had stayed in the space where you were at the trash can and you didn’t give into the epiphany that you felt like God was speaking to you, and eight years passed, and you still felt like James had walked to the trash can, is time alone a difference, or what you do in the time?

It is what you do at that time.

That’s why I say that. When people say time heals all wounds, if you are not leaning into this process and not becoming an active participant when you’re having the moment where you’re like, “I can’t do it anymore,” and you don’t reach out to one person, you stay isolated, and you don’t articulate or vocalize that, I challenge whether or not time elapsing alone is going to make a difference.

You taught me something here. I did not look at it like that. I’m looking at myself. That changed for me.

It was a challenge.

I appreciate that because that taught me something. I’m always learning. There was a young lady who reached out to me because of my YouTube channel. She reached out and said to me, “Even though I didn’t lose a spouse, but a spouse is divorcing me, I feel like I’m a widower because of that. He’s leaving me and never coming back.” That taught me, also.

When she talked to me, I was like, “That’s something that’s big. Your spouse is gone, but it wasn’t like they passed away.” I always looked at it like that type of grief is only for people who lose their spouse, but I was wrong. I learned something that day. When you lose someone in a divorce, it feels like you’re losing that person. People also tell me they lose their pets. It has opened my mind up to lots of different types of grief.

It’s a lot to unpack. Grief is a lot. That’s why I love what you do. It’s helping people tremendously. These people don’t understand what they have through you. They have something. They have hope. I didn’t know this. You reached out to me. That’s how I heard about the Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. You reached out to me, and I was like, “Who is this young lady? Let me look at some of the stuff she’s talking about.” I was then like, “This is awesome. She is doing something that’s good and is helping others.”

That’s what helping others is about. Helping others is putting others before yourself. A lot of times, when you help people, that’s what it’s about. You’re helping other people and saying, “Forget me. Let me do something to help other people.” That’s why I love Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. I love helping you with the men’s grief call. It’s gratifying for me. Thank you.

I’m glad to hear that. Thank you for saying that. A men’s only grief support group, why is it important? When you and I were talking about doing this. We had a discussion about you doing one open group and me doing one open group, or the value of a men’s only. When we initially had the conversation, you were on the fence about which way to go. How do you feel about leading a peer-to-peer men’s only grief support group?

I also want to mention that I feel like the idea of divorce is worse because there is rejection involved. It’s unnatural. You feel like a lot of things, but rejection is at the root of that. Unfortunately, death is organic. It’s expected. Making this commitment as someone turning from those vows, I feel like that adds a different level of complication.

It’s like abandonment. You feel abandoned by your spouse. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. If someone leaves you, you are like, “We took a vow together, and you’re going to give that up.” I see what you’re saying. That can be much worse than I thought. When someone talked to me about that, I was like, “That is tough.”

It is tough mentally to process that. Maybe somebody could stay with the kids and other stuff, but it adds another level of dynamics to that loss. One of the widows I know says all grief is the same, and all grief is different. I’ll put that in that context. It could be the loss of a pet. It could be the loss of your job. It could be your own health. You start stockpiling those on top of each other. You’re like, “My spouse passed, who was my rock, and now these other things happen. What should I do?” If I am a man, to whom can I be vulnerable? Who can I cry to and not be told I’m not a good man? What are some things in the dynamics of having a men’s only grief support group you found beneficial?

The Importance Of A Men’s Only Grief Support Group & Cultural Barriers To Male Vulnerability

I can speak for American culture, and this may be worldwide. In American culture, men are taught, “You have to be tough. You have to grieve on your own. Don’t let them see you crying,” and all of this type of stuff. I was taught that as a boy growing up. They were like, “You’re not going to cry in front of people. Be tough.”

When you’re going through a situation where you’re like, “I’m suffering from this grief. What do I do? Who do I talk to?” You feel, “I don’t have anyone to talk to.” When we set this up to help men, it’s a process, trying to get men to say, “I’m going to get on here and talk.” Some men talk, and they open up, but as a whole, a lot of men stick to what they’re taught as boys. They want to stick with that because they’re comfortable with it. They’re not comfortable. I wasn’t comfortable, so I understand.

You have to open up to people that you may not know and allow these people and their experiences to help you. They have something to offer. Sometimes, they may see things that you don’t see. You may see things that they don’t see. When you guys come together and communicate, then you can say, “I didn’t recognize that,” and they can say the same thing. That’s why this is such a good thing.

From my experience, women are much better at expressing their grief. Women are a million times better and more comfortable than men are in expressing grief. It’s because of the way we’re raised in our culture and our society. It doesn’t matter if you’re from the hood and grew up in poverty or you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. None of that matters. We’re all taught, “You are a man. Be tough. Deal with it.” You’re taught this. I was personally taught as a kid.

Women are much better at expressing grief. They’re much better at talking it out and leaning on other people who have been through what they’ve been through or going through what they’re going through. For men, it’s like pulling teeth. People are saying, “I’ll listen to what this person is saying,” and they won’t say anything. They’ll just sit there.

It is a good thing to open yourself up and say, “Let me listen and learn. Maybe I can add something that’ll help them with something that I’ve been through and that I see.” That’s what it is. You have to open yourself up and allow someone to be able to help you. That’s why I’m grateful for the men’s grief meeting. It is a blessing. It helps people. When it comes to helping people, that’s what I’m all about. I love helping people.

I like that you mentioned the idea that it’s okay to sit there in silence. You may not be ready to talk. Sometimes, it takes hearing other people share their journey to realize, “I’m not the only one feeling that way. There are other men.” It’s validating. I know you’re great at helping the men’s grief, but let’s talk about James Price outside of Widowhood. You have some speaking engagements going on. You have a YouTube channel. Let’s hear about that and other things about you and what your passions are.

Ever since I became a widower, I said, “I’m going to help others.” It wasn’t immediate. You know my faith. I truly do believe in God and His son, Jesus Christ. I believe that. I felt that God wanted me to help others. I said, “God, you want me to help other people? I’m the one who needs some help.” I then said, “I’ll be obedient to what God wants and help people,” so I started a YouTube channel.

Once I realized that I’m helping people, that’s when it became gratifying for me. I don’t make all this money rolling in dough. There is nothing like that. I enjoy helping other human beings. I don’t care about where you’re from in the world. I don’t care what color you are. I don’t care about any of that. These people breathe like I do. They put their pants on like I do. They go through things in life like I do. If I can help someone, that’s what it’s all about.

I started out with my YouTube channel by putting a camera right in front of me and started talking. I then started to learn how to edit videos on the fly. I wasn’t taught how to do anything. I said, “I’m going to do it,” and started a YouTube channel. Many people are from other parts of the world. This is not just America or the United States where you and I are. These people from Australia and South Africa are reaching out to me.

They’re like, “Your videos helped me. My wife passed away.” I’m like, “Wow.” They tell me, “My wife was healthy. She dropped dead on her morning jog.” I’m like, “I’m sorry to hear that.” I’m offering condolences so much. Helping people is a passion that I’ve developed. I have speaking engagements. I felt that this was what I was going to be doing, but I couldn’t see it. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t see it coming to fruition. It is now.

I have my very first professional speaking engagement, and it’s in North Carolina. I’m going to be there. I’m going to be talking to people about grief. I’m going to do the best I can. I’m going to be transparent. I’m going to be real and honest with people. I’m going to tell people what worked for me and all the circumstances that I use in my life that helped me. I want to help people.

I believe that when you’re transparent, real, and honest, that’ll be a blessing to other people and will help them deal with what they’re going through. You said something very strong for me to understand. It’s not that time heals all wounds. It’s like, “What if you were in this state of mind? What if you were thinking this way?” You taught me something. I understand that. I’m going to put that in my speech. I’m going to add that. Don’t sue me for that, but I’m going to use all of that. Everybody may not be in the same mindset that I’m in, and I have to understand that. That’s part of being a grief expert or whatever you want to call me.

Advocacy?

Yes. They’re calling me like, “You’re a grief coach.”

You are.

It’s weird that other people are calling me that, but it is what it is. I’m grateful to be able to help other people. The platform that you have has helped me tremendously. I also feel that this is going to be good not just for me, but for other people. This helps me, too. Whenever I can sit there and listen to others and what they’re going through, that helps me as well.

It’s been eight years. I can always learn. I’m open to learning from others. I love doing this. Thank you for your platform. I’m so grateful. God is good in my life. It isn’t perfect. I have my issues where I say, “Lord, help me. What’s going on with me?” I’m alive. That’s the way I look at it. Let’s go for it. Let’s go for life. Let’s try to make the best out of what I have. I don’t focus on tomorrow. I focus on right now. The only thing guaranteed to me is right now. That’s how I live my life.

What is the name of your YouTube channel?

It’s James Price Ministry. That’s the name of it.

Where else can people find you on social media?

My social media is @JamesDeandrePrice. That’s my middle name. Go to social media. You can find me on X, LinkedIn, and all of that. You can find me on all of the social media platforms. I love helping others. That’s what I’m all about. It is helping other people.

Advice To Younger Self on Vulnerability & Seeking Community

I have one final question for you. If you were to speak to yourself the week after your daughter passed, and this means your wife has passed and then your daughter, what would you tell yourself then? Knowing everything you know now, and you were able to step back and talk to yourself, what would you tell yourself?

That is the best question ever. Knowing everything that I know now, I could talk to myself. I would tell myself, “Don’t give up. It’s going to get better. The reason it’s going to get better is because you’re not giving up.” I would tell myself, “Do not give up. It’s going to get better. When you help other people, you get better. When you have people like yourself who have a platform to help others, you will get better. If you align yourself with others who have been through what you are going through, life can get better. It can get easier.”

There is more culpability when you’re dealing with others who know exactly what you’ve been through. You can’t say, “I’m going to become a rapper now,” because becoming a rapper is not going to help you deal with this type of grief. You have to keep things in context. Lining yourself up with people who know exactly what you are dealing with is the best way to go.

That’s what I would tell myself. “Align yourself with like-minded people who know exactly what you’re going through and who can help you. Sit there and listen at times.” For me, it was tough because I looked at myself as this know-it-all. I’m like, “I’m a tough guy. I got this.” I didn’t have it. I had to pretty much shut up, listen, sit back, and learn. There are people who know more than you do, and these people can help you. That’s what I had to do. I would tell myself to listen, shut up, and learn. That’s what I would tell myself. If I could go back and tell myself something, that’s exactly what I would say. Learn.

Thank you. I’m going to say something to our readers. I would like you to close this out. Maybe there’s something you thought we were going to talk about and we didn’t, whether it be a subject or whatever that looks like. I want to thank you for being a part of this conversation with James Price. He is an integral part of Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. We could not support the men, the widowers, if it were not for James.

I invite you to share this with any man that you know who is grieving and is looking for a safe space. Our next episode that is coming up is a mini series that we have of widowhoods and healing through the holidays, going through the month of November all the way through January. I invite you to check out this series that’s coming up. This is our last episode for the month of October. I’m going to have James back on a regular basis to check in with him and see how he’s doing with the men.

It will be an absolute honor. I would love that. I’m always available for whatever Tina wants because I know that she’s helping others. I’m always here. It’s an honor to be here talking with you, Tina, and everyone who’s tuning in. I’m here for you. This is what I do. I’m very real and transparent. I want to help you. I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m going to tell you what I know would help you.

Everything that we’ve talked about in this episode is the honest truth. That’s what it’s all about. I’m all about being truthful and honest. I know that if I’m truthful and honest that I could help others. If I’m lying, not being real, and I don’t want to let people know this or that about myself, I’m not about that. I’ll tell you anything. If I know it’ll help you, I’ll tell you.

If I’m looking bad in other people’s eyes, I don’t care. I heard people tell me, “You don’t have to tell them that.” This is who I am. This is organically me, telling the truth. I know that telling the truth helps people. That’s what I’m all about. I’m all about helping people and being honest, so I can help the next man or the next woman. I’m not all about just helping men. I help women as well. I help anybody who’s been through loss. That’s what it’s all about.

Thank you. I’ll see you soon.

Important Links

• James Price on LinkedIn
• James Price on X
• James Price on Facebook
• James Price on Instagram
• James Price Ministry on YouTube

About James Price

James Price is a Grief Coach/Public Speaker out of Detroit, Michigan.

Eight years ago, James became a single Father of two beautiful daughters after the tragic death of his Wife of ten years. James lost his Wife during childbirth, and unfortunately, he lost his third child in the process. Because of this, James suffered tremendous grief and decided to lean on his Christian Faith and put his trust in Jesus. From his grief, James started a YouTube channel to help others grow their Faith and develop strategies to push through this thing called life. James met Tina through his YouTube channel, and they partnered to start a “Men’s Monthly Grief Meeting” on Zoom… the monthly meeting is held every 2nd Thursday of every month for the past year. James loves helping others grow and witnessing their progress by staying in touch with those individuals. Parting with Tina and her Organization has given James a sense of purpose, and his passion to help others has become even greater.