Coping with widowhood Archives - Widowhood Real Talk with Dr. Tina

Finding Faith And Healing In Widowhood With Danny Lesslie

Podcast / July 30, 2026

Widowhood Real Talk with Tina | Danny Lesslie | Widowhood Faith And Healing

Dr. Tina Fornwald connects with author Danny Lesslie to discuss widowhood, faith, and healing through the lens of profound personal loss. They discuss the raw reality of losing a spouse to terminal illness and how to navigate the overwhelming isolation that follows. Danny shares how he and his late wife co-authored a unique memoir, Thank You, Cancer, that captures both of their voices during a five-year cancer battle. Together, they explain why friends need to sit in the mud with grieving spouses rather than trying to fix unfixable pain. You’ll learn practical ways to involve children in family healing and honor your late partner while building a renewed life. 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. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here Finding Faith And Healing In Widowhood With Danny Lesslie Thank You, Cancer is a powerful memoir about love, loss, resilience, and faith, co-authored by Danny and his late wife, Raffi. It tells the story of their journey through Raffi’s five-year battle with stage four cancer and the life they built together in the face of it all. Let us get into this conversation now with Danny as we talk about Thank You, Cancer. Overcoming Awkwardness To Connect Through Grief Danny. Welcome to the Widowhood. How are you? Thank you so much. Thank you so much. When you first heard widower, were you thinking, thank you so much? Absolutely not. I can tell you that it feels wildly alone. Hearing someone say welcome is nice, right? A lot of people just tend to run away from the conversation. They tend to run away from all of it, and we cannot run away from it. That gets weird. That was why I was like, “Thank you.” That is probably one of the things that I try to work on the most with my nonprofit. When you said it is wildly alone, I do not think that people around us realize how much we need connection more so than maybe before. We need to get over being awkward and lean in. The awkwardness I have found is not due to someone not caring. It is due to lack of experience and tools, and they just do not know how to connect. I always tell people that the way it felt to me when this first started was that after the initial period when your person passes, and family is around, and people are checking on you, it feels like you are sitting on an island and it is just drifting further from the mainland. You have no control over it. Life is going on as it is. You are just watching it. There is so much distance that people really avoid it because they do not want to make you sad, or then eventually they do not even know. We live in a new city now, so no one knew her here. It is this huge separation. That is so real, and it is so invisible. I have thought about the idea of people relocating, and now do I tell people when I introduce myself, or do they just get to know this version of me, and we do not make that part of the original introduction? How have you navigated that? Honoring Your Late Spouse In New Surroundings There is beauty in both. We moved six months before we lost my wife. Her name is? Raffaella. Say that again. Look at that smile. Go on. We moved here, and she was very ill. Her out-of-the-house time was very minimal. There is no one here that knows her. That is really nice in some regards because you do not bump into people that want to do the emotional. That is nice because if I were in my hometown where everyone knows me and I knew people all over, that would be a constant hurdle where I would want to stay at home. I would not want to go out because I keep running into people. It has been a real gift in that regard. There are people that I meet that are genuine relationships, and I feel like I am lying to not tell them about her because she is the heart of our family. She is the mother of my children. She is the love of my life. How do I meet someone and not talk about her? Rarely does that conversation find someone who can hold space for it without either emotions or trying to get out of it or feeling awkward or apologizing to me. I can solve them, and that is weird. There are just so many things. I can totally relate to that. My husband and I spent 32 years together. I cannot talk about my life and not talk about him. No part of that exists. I have learned just to share past that being uncomfortable because he is a part of my life. My children, we had together. That is part of it. People really care. It is not that they do not care. They just do not have the tools to have that conversation. I was that person. I was the one. I did not know how to deal with grief or what to say. I was the platitude guy or whatever. It is just that awkwardness. You just have to get through it. I love that you said that you were that guy. When my husband passed, I had this Rolodex going in my mind of all the people I knew that had passed. It is like, “Did I say that to them?” It was just like all

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Grief, Love, Moving Forward After Loving Larry With Dannie D.

Podcast / June 4, 2026

Widowhood Real Talk with Tina | Dannie D. | Grief

When people go through grief, they often handle it so self-consciously that it becomes a performance-based experience. They tend to “check off boxes” of how the grieving journey is supposed to look. Tina Fornwald discusses the importance of honoring one’s own timeline for release and healing with Dannie D. He reflects on how he addresses the stigma around Black males crying and showing emotions when grieving, as well as the negative perspectives around going to therapy. Dannie D. also opened up about his experience as a widower after the death of his partner Dale, who passed away from a heart attack at age 50. 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. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here Grief, Love, Moving Forward After Loving Larry With Dannie D. Widowhood, what do you do when you are a trained mental health professional, and your person dies? How do you manage the mental health side and the I am the griever side? How do they work together? This conversation and more are going to be answered in this conversation with Dannie D as he talks about the love of his life and what life looks like now. Let us get into this discussion. Dannie, welcome to the Widowhood. I am surprised. When you hear, “Welcome to the Widowhood,” what comes to mind first? Like no bars, no holding back, no social media, no bad words to not say. What comes to your mind when you hear that? I like just the sound of it. It makes me feel like I am in this environment where there are flowers and dewdrops and falls and springs. All of these wonderful things make me feel comfortable. I hear community and connection, and I am not alone. Most people may not understand why you feel that way when you hear that word. Why does it bring you comfort? I am at a place in my life where I have done all the things that I wanted to do, or I should say set out to do. I was a professional dancer. I said I wanted to be a professional dancer when I was about 2 or 3 or 4. I was a little bit older, maybe like four. I did that. I became a choreographer. I became a teacher. I became a clinician. I am licensed, and I bought property. I have done all the things. It allows me time to really settle into who I am and identify what is around me. I am a big proponent of mindfulness and implementing self-care practices within your daily routine. I find myself in this present moment a lot of times in life. Let me ask a different question. Who is not here in your life that has brought us to this conversation? Dale. You will respect me calling him Dale. I like Larry. Larry is a much better name for me. We are going to get into that. I need to know, so now you got me with my nose hat out. Dale Miller. It was very interesting because I was not in a place to actually meet anybody. I was just not mentally or physically prepared. I was going through some illnesses and just transitions in general. This was prior to my injury, and I was still trying to figure out who I am, as a person, as an individual, my identity. All of those different things because I was a dancer, and that is who I was, that was it. Hold on for a second. Not just a dancer, I mean, drop some of these things that you have done, the places you went to school. Dancing would be like Tina saying, “She was dancing.” No. As a professional, can you elaborate on that for the scholars in the dance world so they can understand who you are and what you have done? I always say that Debbie Allen is my unofficial first dance teacher because I started watching Fame, the TV series. I had not seen the movie yet. I started watching Fame, the TV series. I saw Leroy, and I was like, “Wait a minute,” because I had seen dance before. I had not seen dance with people who looked like me, which is a good reason why presentation matters. I saw Leroy, and I was like, “I can do that.” I was like, “Wait, no, I want to do that.” For years, I just sort of watched Fame, put on my sister’s leg warmers. I was just emulating, mimicking what was going on on TV. I would sit in what we call the center splits, which is your legs wide open in a second position. I would just sit there and watch the show. Eventually, I went to a performing arts school called San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. I met my dance mentor there, Mr. Donald Robinson, who is still my mentor to this day. I call him my dance dad, and he pushed me in directions that I had no idea I was capable of going in. From there, I graduated, and I went to the Alvin Ailey Academy, or Alvin Ailey Dance School, and then I got bumped up into a position where I was able to actually perform. I had a little bit of a nervous breakdown just because of the culture shock moving from California to New York. It is a completely different experience. I ended up coming back home for a little bit. I went to Colorado and danced with Cleo Parker Robinson, and traveled a lot with that company around the

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How To Navigate Widowhood And All The Extra Responsibilities With Donna Kendrick

Podcast / September 4, 2025

What do you say to your children when their father dies by suicide? How do you get through the days when even taking a shower feels impossible? In this powerful episode, our guest Donna Kendrick opens up about what it really means to navigate widowhood—from surviving the early months of unbearable grief to finding meaning, community, and even love again twelve years later. She shares the raw truth about the what-ifs, how to talk to children about suicide, and why it’s okay to laugh, cry, and even get annoyed by that old gym bag. This conversation is a lifeline for anyone facing profound loss—and a reminder that healing doesn’t mean forgetting. 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. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here How To Navigate Widowhood And All The Extra Responsibilities With Donna Kendrick My guest Donna is going to share with you details on about how to manage when your spouse has lost his life by his own hand, how to have that conversation with your children and the importance of community and so much more. Let’s get into this conversation now. Donna, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Tina. Much appreciated. Let me ask you this. When you hear, welcome to the widowhood, what comes to your mind? If someone just read the ticker tape embedded inside your brain, what would that look like? I’m twelve years out now, so when I hear someone say, welcome to the widowhood. I’ll be like, “I’m rocking that.” I’m alright with it. it’s okay. It’s very different than what it felt like many years ago. Navigating Early Widowhood To that person that’s in month one, and they hear someone say, “Twelve years, you’re rocking that,” and they cannot even see how to take a shower regularly. What would you say to them? I’d say that if you shower every three days, that’s good enough. You are okay slow the roll. There is no timeline on this. I’m not saying that every day I feel like I’m rocking it. Some days, I wake up and feel like I just lost my Greg. It’s just part of the journey. We learned to live with it. We don’t go beyond it. When we’ve can walk alongside the widowhood, we’re in great shape. Take your time. Slow your roll. There is no guidebook and definition. Take care of you, especially in those early months, year one, and year two. Take care of you and two feet on the ground standing up. You did it. The Enduring Impact Of Loss & Milestones That sums it up. When you think for you to say twelve years later, if you still can wake up moments and like, “Greg is not here.” It can hit you like that. Are there any particular timelines that make it more impactful than other or benchmarks in your life? When we lost my Greg, my kids were 8, 11 and 12 and I was 40. They’re full-fledged adults now. We’re hitting those milestones, high school graduations, college graduations, first houses and new jobs. Those are the things I always thought we would partner together. That has been impactful. What’s impactful and what makes me miss him most is my oldest looks just like him. We see him walk down the hall and he has his dad’s gate. Is that the word? He was twelve when he lost his dad. He was two feet shorter. It’s like almost shocking because he’s the age that I met his dad. As he walks down the hallway, I see a man that looks like my late husband and take me off my feet. I’m like, “That happened.” Those are big ones. Smells do it for me. Dirty gym bags. That’s my husband. I’ll tell you, to all the readers out there, it is A-okay even though you lost someone that you love very much to smell that dirty gym bag. I got immediately annoyed. I don’t mean just take the clothes out so we can wash them. It’s okay. I’m allowed out the feeling of we used to pee me off at that moment in time. That’s a lot. Let yourself do it. You’re not a bad person for doing that. When you say that, I can relate to that. My son has a lot of clothing items of his dad and he doesn’t live with me but I’ll pick him up sometimes. We’re hanging out and he has on his dad’s sweater. His shoulders looked like his dad or if I see him from behind and wearing something. It’s just like it’s love sucker punch and everything all embodied in one thing. Coping With “What If” Thoughts & Finding Agency I’m like, “You just knocked me out of hello doing that.” You said something about the gym bag about if that were great gym bag. You would have said this and that. It made me think about in this journey, a lot of times people spend a deep amount of sorrow in the what ifs. “If I would have had my time back. If I could have done this over.” Have you ever encountered the what if season? If so, what has helped you with that? The what if season was huge in year one. My husband had taken his life. I always thought like, “What if I didn’t spend that extra half hour at lunch with the kids? I could have been there. What if I would have told his employer that I worried about him and they would have taken his gun.”

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