Securing Life After Death With Pam Baker
A lot of things have to be addressed and dealt with after a loved one’s passing, especially on the financial side. How can you handle life after death in the smoothest way possible? I sit down with Pam Baker, who talks about her book “Where’s the Key to the Safe?” She discusses how she handled the finances of her late husband while dealing with the grief of losing her most beloved person in the world. Pam also shares how her widowhood journey inspired her to create Widows Who Wine™, a community centered on supporting and uplifting each other by celebrating their interests and passions. 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 Securing Life After Death With Pam Baker Our guest Pam Baker is going to talk to us about some essential information that she learned after the passing of her husband John. The book that we’re going to cover Where’s the Key to the Safe? She didn’t know where the keys were. This is not like a fictitious title. She did not know where the keys were to the safe when her husband died. Pam found out that there was so much more that she didn’t know. She doesn’t want other people to struggle about things that they don’t know when someone that they love pass. This book and this conversation is not just for widows and widowers. This is for anyone that’s alive and needs to plan for the people that will be here after they leave or maybe you have people in your family that you’re wanting to support and need to understand their points. This is a conversation for you. Also, the idea of her group that she has for women who won, widows who won, you want to hear about this. This is something that you may be able to connect with where you’re adding your location. Let’s get into this conversation now. Pam, welcome to the Widowhood. Thank you so much for having me. “Thank you for having me in the widowhood,” when you feel. I know. That’s weird. Let’s back up. What does that mean? I know we’re jumping but it’s so funny because I’ve talked to you about my group Widows Who Wine™ and it’s a social group. Once a month, I’ll do a welcome. We have a private Facebook group and I’ll do a welcome to everybody like, “Welcome to,” then I’m like, “Wait.” I do that every single time because I want to be warm and inviting but then I’m like, “That’s weird. It’s like welcome to the tribe.” How Widows Who Wine™ Came To Be What is the name of your group? What do you guys do? Since we’re there, let’s talk about. I’ll just back up a little bit. My husband passed away in November of 2021. He had brain cancer and I couldn’t find my way in the widow world and in the grief world because every grief group I tried felt like people stuck there. It didn’t feel like they were trying to figure out how to move through it and with it in a healthy way. To me, it just didn’t resonate. I hired my own grief counselor like a private one-on-one certified grief coach. I still work with her now. She’s more of a life coach now but the grief still hits when it hits. That was in November of 2021 when he passed away. In February of 2023, I kept seeing on our local mom group Facebook pages, women who were widowed. They’d come on there and say, “I just lost my husband or my sister just lost her husband. Where are the resources?” Every time, it was those same resources that didn’t resonate with me and they may with them. It was frustrating me so I decided there needs to be something else. At that point, you realize that when you get back out into life after your person dies, you’re like the third wheel with a couple of your friends from then on. They’re great and it’s fine but it’s just not the same. Your single friends are like talking bad about their exes and how much they suck and all of that. That doesn’t feel right either. The space was awkward, so I decided I’m going to start this group and it’s going to be based on your social network like your social people. You have people to hang out with who have that same shared experience. I always make fun of the head tilt and the, “How are you?” That whole thing that drives me crazy. You just get it because they’re walking the same path. I wanted it to give that social vibe, so I call it Widows Who Wine™. I put it on my Facebook page and said, “Anybody want to come over to my house?” Fourteen women showed up that very first night and I knew of a couple of them. I knew one and then I knew of a few others. I decided I’d keep putting it out there. I’d organize one social event a month and that’s what I did. Everything from ax throwing to wine tasting to pottery. Sometimes we do educational things and home maintenance 101 and financial planning 101, etc. It just has grown and grown and now there’s over 350 women in it in the Atlanta area and all kinds of offshoots like widows who travel, widows who dine, widows who golf, widows who poker, widows who Mahjong. There’s everything. It’s awesome. To plug this for a second because so many people
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