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. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here     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