After the unexpected loss of her husband, widowhood became a turning point that sparked a new chapter in Debbie Weiss‘ life. Debbie joins us to share how widowhood unexpectedly launched her on a journey of self-discovery and transformation. Debbie opens up about navigating grief, redefining her identity, and finding the strength to embrace new possibilities after loss. From redecorating her bedroom to writing the books On Second Thought… Maybe I Can and The Sprinkle Effect: A Guide to Creating a More Colorful and Fulfilling Life, Debbie’s story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of saying ‘yes’ to life, even when it takes you in unexpected directions.

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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When Hope Feels Lost: The Power To Transform After Widowhood With Debbie Weiss

Debbie, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Tina. I’m so happy to be here.

I’m glad to have you here and I cannot not say something about these glasses that you have on. They’re just so jazzy. Tell us about those.

Thank you. They are my favorite thing. I discovered them a few years ago. They’re called Pair Eyewear and you buy the frames from them online. I have progressives, so it’s not like you can’t have a prescription. I have a prescription and then they sell you all different toppers or different designs that just snap onto the glasses. It’s like an accessory. A different accessory that I get to pick out every day just like when you pick out your jewelry or whatever else. I’m like, “What glasses am I going to wear?”

How many toppers do you have?

 

 

Maybe 50.

It’s just like nail polish and everything else we change. You get to have something that goes with your outfit. I like that.

Thank you. As a matter of fact, I was thinking, “I haven’t bought myself anything new in a while. I must be due.”

Time for some toppers.

That’s it.

Finding Your Restorative Place For Peace And Rejuvenation 

There are different shades of purple, the designs and everything else. It sounds like it’s quite an array. Thank you for sharing that with us. That is your favorite thing. Where’s your favorite place to go in the world or if you had a favorite vacation you’d like the take. Where would it be?

To any beach. I grew up near the beach. Not right on the beach but probably about 10 to 15-minute drive with no traffic from the beach. It’s just my happy place. That smell, looking at the water and the sand. It does it for me. It’s hard to be unhappy at a beach for me                 .

Thank you. It’s important for everybody to find what their places because there’s something about when you’re at that place that you get refilled. You have a sense of peace there and it can be maybe your sunroom in your house. It can maybe be a walk with a pet but knowing what it is that fulfills you and revitalize you because one thing we’ll know about being in the widowhood, it can get draining. You need to find that place that you can restore yourself.

Let me share something. As you say that, it reminded me of something and we’ll get into it. My husband was sick for a long time and I was a caregiver for a very long time. Money was an issue. Our house was brand new when we moved into it. It’s now 25 years old and nothing has been updated, time and life and all of that. In my bedroom, my husband had fallen and pretty much broken his nose. There was blood all over the carpet that wasn’t cleaned. Let’s just say that I would go into my bedroom and I hated it there.

My cousin one day said to me, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Some way or another, we have to make this a safe place. We have to make this your haven. Somewhere that you can walk into to escape everything that’s going on outside of these walls and just feel at peace and happy in that space.” I had never given consideration to and it doesn’t have to be. In my case, I did wind up redoing my whole bedroom and it’s amazing now, but it doesn’t even have to be like that. I just noticed if you move your furniture around or clean up a corner that you never had. I never had paid attention to how much our physical space affects our mental outlook.

Thank you for sharing that. Since you’ve mentioned your husband, what is his name? If you would, please.

His name was Gary.

Thank you for mentioning that. I’m going to flow with the conversation, versus the way I was going to approach it. In you mentioning about how you change your bedroom, my son, who went into the military in October. In November, my husband relocated to Virginia because he was trying to find a job there. That was in 2016 and in March 2017, Mark passed. May of 2017, my daughter left to go into the military. A 2,600 square foot house and 1.75 acres, the children grew up there. It was the bustling hustling situation. We were looking forward to them getting out of the house and being empty nesters and life took a dramatic turn for me. I was left in the house with everything just the way it was.

I would come home from work and sit in the driveway in the garage crying with the idea of going into the house that appeared to be the same where we were but nothing was the same. One day, I was up as the odd hours as you do being a widow and it was like, “Why am I letting it stay like this? I can choose to change it around.” It did not cost anything. I literally started moving things from one part of the house to another. What was my son’s bedroom? I converted it into a guest room because a lot of people were coming to visit. I took some sheets that what he would have thought would have been too girly. Put it on that bed and flipped that around the room that was my daughter’s bedroom.

I broke down her bed, gave it away, and I turned it into an office, a study and a place where I did some meditation. I did spend some money in my room changing a little bit of things around, but the rest of the house literally was taking things it was in one room and putting it someplace else because our mind has a memory. When we continually to go back into the same space and you see that chair in that spot and that’s where they always sat when you came in the door. That can be very triggering. That can bring you a list of feelings that you don’t want to.

You want to remember them but not in such a horrific way or maybe that’s where they passed. Taking that chair and putting it in a different room. I suggest your mind to remember but remember a differently because it is rotated. I encourage people to shift furniture around because sometimes, you may stay in the same home that you were in and you’re looking and go, “I don’t have money. I can’t do this and that.” Moving the furniture around from one place to another, changing out the curtains, and cleaning something up. Making small changes can have a huge impact on grief.

I couldn’t agree more. The room that I’m recording in now was a room that I turned into his bedroom and he was down here for a little over a year. Our bedroom is on the second floor. I don’t have any relatives locally. When my husband passed, my brother was here from Cleveland, which is about seven hours drive from where I am. After everything was all over, I said, “Let’s just do it.” We flipped everything back and we did exactly that. We moved the desk that was upstairs to the desk down. We changed things around and repurpose some things.

Over time, I’ve added little teeny things and home goods for $60 that changed everything. It does shift your mindset because I’m still in the same house. There are a lot of memories and some memories you want. People always ask me and I know this problem isn’t what we’re going to talk about but one of the biggest decisions is, are you going to stay there? Are you going to stay in that home? It’s such a hard decision, depending upon where you are and where your kids are. Strongly play into that is money.

There’s so many factors but if you’re not forced to leave. Is it still better to leave? When is the right time to leave? That seemed to be one of the first things. Are you going to stay in that big house? Are you going to stay there? It’s not time to make a decision right away. Let’s just sit back and see how things play out.

How Grief Affects Decision-Making And Why Wait Before Major Choices

Let’s talk about that for a little bit because those are very common questions and things about in this journey of widowhood, the house or belongings or items and how do you do with those. I know a lot of people say, “Don’t make any choices in the first year if you don’t have to.” It’s as if it’s something magical about a year but literally our brain has experienced trauma. Your prefrontal cortex, the brain that you are accustomed to operating with is operating at a diminished capacity. You’re amygdala in the back of your brain, you’re more on fight and flight response than some of the logic. Will you have a brief brain?

You have foggy thoughts. You think that you’re a crystal clear but when you literally go a bit of time and you reflect back and you’re like, “I don’t remember anything.” “I don’t recall what happened.” “I don’t know who did what or how that even came about.” Every person I’ve spoken with, when they go back and try to reflect over the first few months of their loved one passing, there’s a lot of gaps in memory. If you don’t have to make major decisions, I encourage people not to.

Now, there may be a situation where they made more money, no life insurance, and you had no means and you’re about to be financially devastated. You’re needing to make a choice that’s going to be for your betterment, then that’s something that you have to do. If you’re in a situation that you can wait, I do encourage people to give it time because there is so much to think about. I’ve talked to people that sold the house right away and then about two years later, they regret it and wished that they never did. Have you had interaction with people or what would be your thoughts on that?

No, I completely agree. Everybody who asked me now, who says, “I have a fairly big house.” I have two sons. One is a senior in college and he’s going to be home. He’s going to graduate and he plans on coming back and living at home. I have another son who suffers from mental illness whose living with me and who I don’t see any time soon won’t be living with me. It’s not like I have an empty house.

Fortunately, even though financially it was certainly be easier for me to be in a smaller house and more affordable. I have been able to stay here. Even though I see the financial benefits of downsizing, I’m not fully convinced that that’s the right thing for myself and my kids at this point. I’m staying put and I just know that it’s the right time. I know it’s not the right time.

Somebody has a lot to do with it. For me, we were in Pennsylvania and it was cold those. It was horrific. Both of the children were out of the house. They were in the military. There was no concept of them returning to the house, so I had to say, why would I stay in the house? Our goal was to relocate to Virginia and relocating here to Virginia was a fulfillment of something that we planned on doing. That was already something that was in place. Mark had a found the job and I was in the process of finding one.

The gut, running the numbers, and the logic, all of those came together. One of the other things that I found that was very interested in being a widow is a lack of accountability. Mark and I did everything together. Now, I’m making these very life-changing decisions and having to do them independently. I feel like I made the decisions but I’m glad that. I allow myself some time to do that.

I agree. In my case, it was a little bit different because my husband also suffered from mental illness. I was pretty much making the decisions but he was still a sounding board. Not that he wouldn’t make decisions but he was in a point with depression and anxiety. He didn’t want to make any decisions but at least, when he was in the right frame of mind that he and I could discuss it.

On Second Thought…Maybe I Can: The Meaning Behind The Title

The idea of being a widow in always having to think, can I do this and can I do that? When I looked at the name of your book, I was like, how appropriate, On Second Thought… Maybe I Can.

I came up with the title before my husband had passed away. Where it came from was the fact that for the majority of my life, anytime that any opportunity was presented and it didn’t have to be something big like, do you want to change jobs or move? It didn’t have to be something like that. It could have been something as simple as, do you want to learn how to knit? Right away, I would say no. “I don’t do that.” “I can’t do that.” “That’s not for me.”

I always had no. It was just the answer. Even though, maybe inside I might have been thinking, I wonder if I could do that. My knee-jerk reaction was always no. As I got older, what I discovered was even if I still wanted to say no, if I just waited a second more. That next second is, “On second thought, why not?” “Maybe I can do that.” “Maybe I can learn to knit.” “Maybe I can whatever that is.” When you say, maybe you can that’s when you grow as a person as oppose to doing what I had done all my life and just saying no.

Saying no was because there was some type of fear there. Most likely fear of failing or looking silly or being judged or any of those things. Those are the kinds of fears that stop us from moving forward. As a widow, how often are we faced because it’s almost like everything is new. Everything that is happening to us is new because it’s a new experience because we’re going through it as a widow as opposed to as a wife.

 

 

There is so much in here and I’ve made a couple of notes of things that I liked to go over. For the audience, I’d like for them to understand what is spoken about in the book if you don’t mind reading some of the contents, part one, Discovering the Past, In the beginning, Dance Class, and Am I in the right family. I thought that part was hilarious. I’m not even going to go over that so much but I was like, “That was pretty interesting.”

The dreaded belt listed some memories from me and corporal punishment but take it when you will there with that. Always a bridesmaid, softball tryouts, and Bobby strike four. Part two, Developing The Transition, Dad or College, Debbie the Caregiver Was Born, Life After College, and Joe Meeting Gary. There are some more on that section but I’m going to move to part three, Defining the Present, Money, Becoming the Boss, and Belly Dancing. I thought that was interesting title, but it fit. Keeping an open mind, Wizard of Oz, and the end of the era. When you hear me read all that, what comes to mind for you? I know you’ve written it but sometimes when you listen, it’s something different when you hear it.

It’s so funny because I haven’t looked at it in such a long time that I forgot I forgot the titles. I’m proud that I was able to do it, to actually write and hopefully, articulate the message. That was my intention, which was inspiring people that regardless of all these limiting beliefs and all these things and issues that we develop along the way that no matter what our circumstances are, we have the power to change our lives.

Regardless of all these limiting beliefs and issues we develop along the way, no matter what our circumstances are, we have the power to change our lives. Share on X

Thank you.

I’m proud.

Writing A Book: Lessons Learned And Advice For Aspiring Authors

For someone that is thinking about writing a book, what were some lessons learned or a couple of things you would want to share with them from your experience?

Let me just say that never in my life did I ever have any desire to write a book. I considered myself a numbers girl. Math was my subject. I graduated with a degree in accounting. I had an accounting career. I was a CPA for many years and now I’ve been an insurance agent. None of those things equal writing. As time went on and all these crazy things. Not crazy but mostly talk challenges and everyone’s like, “You need to write a book.” You’ve heard that and you just blow it off. “That’s what I did.” “Sure. I need to write a book.”

When I started wanting to spread my message to other women, it was like, how do I do that? What is the best way? What is the best Avenue? I started seeing and understanding and thinking about the power of writing a book but I thought, “I don’t know anything about ghost writers. How much do they cost? Where do you find them?” I, myself, I believed that I was not capable. What wound up happening was, I was listening to a show. A show I was not a regular listener of and there was a woman on as a guest who helped first-time authors get their stories out there.

I thought, “Oh my goodness. This was meant to be.” I contacted her after the episode and liked her a lot. She convinced me that I could do it and she was starting a twelve-week course for first-time authors to help them learn how to do this. I was about to pull the trigger and say yes and then out of the blue, my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I was speaking to a therapist at the time and I said to the therapist, “I’m even embarrassed, but I’m saying this out loud. I’m little disappointed because I thought that he was maybe going to do this and the timing but I’ll put it off.” She said, “I disagree with you. Now is the perfect time for you to take this course.” I said, “What? I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what the next weeks or months or whatever. How can I do this? What if I can’t show up one week? What if there’s homework and I can’t do it?” It was a weekly online course. he said, “Who cares? Let go of that.”

It’s this desire to be the A student to not disappoint and I realized, “She’s right because who’s going to judge me? My husband is dying.” It gave me a little bit of a freedom. The first month or so, I struggled and everybody’s brain works differently. I need to see it. I didn’t understand. I’m writing these stories but then what? What’s the through line? What’s the order? What’s the month? How is somebody going to get my message?

It took me a while but for me, once I had that plotted out and I understood and once I had my titles of my stories then it was easier to go back in and write. The other thing that is just so funny now that I think about it. In my mind, I had to write it in the order, chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three. When I learned, you can write it in any order. It was this amazing freedom because then, every day when I sat down to write, I could look at the outline and say, “What do I feel like talking about?”

That was that was super helpful. For me and for anyone who wants to do it and does it know where to start, taking this small group chorus was helpful but just more of the belief that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter your circumstances and if you’ve ever had any training because I had nothing. You can do it.

Breaking Free From The Identity Of Suffering

Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure that’s going to help someone. Let me read on page number one, “I have been a victim for most of my life. It became my identity. Others would listen to my tales of woe and say, ‘Poor Debbie.’ I was a victim of my circumstances. This was my belief until a few years ago when I came to understand that everyone could call themselves a victim, if that’s how they chose to live. I had no idea there was an alternative. I hadn’t received the memo.”

It gave me the chills.

What comes to mind? What do you think of in here?

I didn’t even know that I was doing it. I didn’t even realize. I have always been an upbeat person. I was always a happy person on the outside. I had no idea that I was viewing myself this way. It wasn’t until I started diving into learning more about myself that I came to that realization. At first, it came with a lot of self-degradation like, I can’t believe that this is what I’ve been doing my whole life. On the other hand, now knowing that, it gave me the power to change it. Pay attention to how I thought, how I acted, and where I made my decisions from.

Was there something that happened at that point that brought that to lighter or was it a slow reckoning?

It was a slow reckoning and when I talk about my story, I say it happened when I turned 50 but it wasn’t on my 50th birthday, the heavens opened up and started singing and saying, “Here, time to make a change.” It was a slow realization and something from me about the number 50 hit me hard, thinking, how could 50 years have already passed? If this passed so quickly, how quickly are the next 50 going to go?

I watched my father who was who was disabled for the last 30 years of his life but with a lot of regrets. I see my mother having a lot of resentments and I thought to myself, “That’s going to be me. If I don’t change something, that’s going to be me.” I don’t want to get to the end of my life and say, “Where did it all go? How did I waste it?” Always complaining or feeling sorry for myself and not taking the bull by the horns and leading my life as I wanted to. I didn’t know what how I wanted it to be, by the way. I had no idea but I knew that I needed to take control instead of letting everything and everyone that was going on around me control my direction.

The Universal Struggles We All Share In Overcoming Adversity

Thank you. Number one, In the Beginning. “Ever since I can remember, as well as prior to that. I’m guessing since birth, even though I can’t say, ‘I recall it.’ My life’s theme has been my weight. Now hold on and don’t roll your eyes at me. Even if weight hasn’t been your life theme, the emotions I dealt with and the lessons I’ve learned are universal no matter what you struggle with.? What have been some of those universal lessons?

The lessons have been that it doesn’t define me. I have for very long time felt that just because I was overweight, I wasn’t worthy and lovable. I was constantly being judged and my self-worth went up and down with the scale. Even now, even though I would hate to admit it, it’s still is hard to shake that. I’m not a million times better than I was and I’m at a place in my life with my weight that I honestly never thought that I could achieve but I have but it’s about battle.

Thank you for sharing that. When I hear that, Debbie, it’s like grief. It still exists but we hold it different. It’s not something you’re ever over. It’s just the way that we manage is different once we identify or we work on different things. What would you say to that?

That’s so true. Let me just share with anyone who’s not looking. I’d say now I’m probably 10 pounds overweight. I was 100 plus pounds overweight. I don’t know why being so skinny that I have a problem. I had met a woman somewhere and she struggled with the weight. She was working with women who struggled with their weight on their own self-worth. It’s not about losing weight or anything like that and I related to her.

She just met me and she said, “What do you talking about because I don’t see that. Why would you relate?” I said, “Are you kidding me?” I had to tell her. Excuse me if this word offends anyone, but my cousins who also struggled with their weight, we use the word fat. My feeling is once a fat girl, always a fat girl because that’s who I am inside. It’s the same exact thing with being a widow. Once you’ve experienced that, once you’ve gone through the pain and suffering of that, it never goes away.

Once you've experienced that pain and suffering of being a widow, it never goes away. Share on X

Meeting Gary: A Life-Changing Love Story 

Let’s talk about Gary. How did you meet him?

I was a CPA and I was working at a small accounting firm. I had these monthly clients that I went to. I’m seeing people every month and at this one particular location, the bookkeeper that I worked with was a woman around my mom’s age who had a daughter the same age as me. I would go and she and I would chat before we started working and it always seemed to go back to how difficult it was to meet a good guy.

She had listened. I was in love with my boss. Whatever. She listened to all my stories. One day, she said to me, “Do you see that guy out there?” “Yeah.” “Every time I talk to him, he reminds me of you.” I said, “Really?” I had never spoken to him. He had nothing to do with the numbers part. He was a salesman. I said, “I thought he was married. He looks married.” Whatever married looks like. I thought that it was him. Anyway, that’s how we met and he played hard to get just because he, at that point, was like 35 years old and had decided he was just going to be single for the rest of his life. He was happy. He was happy in his little life and wasn’t looking for any complications and I made his life so complicated.

Only complicated and nothing else?

Maybe I brought some good stuff but very complicated. He went from a very simple life to quite complex with all the things that our life together brought.

It was spicy and it wasn’t boring.

It wasn’t. Never. We laughed a lot in the first 15 or 20 years.

How long were you and Gary together?

Thirty years.

Relating To Others In The Journey Of Self-Discovery

We are in, Am I in the right family. There’s a lot going on here. I’m just going to read this one sentence. “She just couldn’t relate and I saw how miserable I was.”

She just couldn’t relate meaning my mother.

When I read that, it wasn’t just about your mother. It’s about people not being able to relate to someone else. I saw it when you talked about being a universal struggle. Even though this was a conversation about the weight, it was a relatability to other different things.

That just reminded me of something. As a widow, I recently went away. I’m very friendly with two of my first cousins. We were just a way on a cruise celebrating my one cousin’s 60th birthday. The whole time, I watched as they checked in with their husbands. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes not, but always later in the day. If it wasn’t a phone call during the day, it might have been a text or a ‘Call you later. Here’s where we are,’ kind of thing.

It’s a girl’s trip.

Yes, just the three of us. Close to the end of the trip, I thought, “I can call my son.” He couldn’t care less where I was. I don’t even think if you asked him now where I went, he would know. It’s not the same. It’s not the same as someone being interested in where you are and what’s happening. Maybe you want to say what’s going on with them or what’s going on at home. I wanted to talk to my son to find out what was going on at home just to make sure he didn’t burn the house down but that’s different.

No matter how much my cousins think they can understand. They can’t and I’m glad they can’t and that that applies to anything. I was talking to someone who doesn’t have children but she loves her nieces and her nephews. She would do anything for them and she would. I don’t doubt that. I feel the same for my nieces and nephews, but when my niece was first born before I had children, I couldn’t imagine. It would be possible to love anyone more, then I had my son.

The point being, until you were a parent, you can never explain what it’s like. It’s the same thing with being a widow and with anything else. Until we each know firsthand what is like. You try to imagine. You sympathize. It’s not anything malicious that we’re doing but we just can’t get it. That’s what, for me, and anything that I ever struggled with, support groups have always been where I’ve gotten the most support because I can take a breath and everybody else understands. Even if they’re not going through the same specific exact thing. They get it. They get what I’m saying and what I’m feeling. There’s just such a power and comfort in that.

It is. The other thing that I would add to that is for us to put less pressure on the people that don’t understand and to have realistic expectations. They have not traveled the road we’re on. Why would we expect them to fully understand? Many people on this journey of grief becomes so irritated with family and friends because they don’t know how to show up and they get very disappointed that they weren’t there.

I asked people, how did how to show for anybody before your spouse passed? Often, they say, “I didn’t.” Do not equate your friends and families love for you based on the inability to show up because you were still figuring it out. We’re in uncharted territory. It’s very reasonable to believe they don’t know what to do and they’re looking for us to guide them or give them direction or tell them what we need to have done. It can be a very frustrating and lonely place and people isolate.

I agree with you, community, support group, and connecting with at least 1 or 2 other people that have traveled the same road can be a game changer in your grief journey. It may take going to a few support groups that you find or your tribe. It may not happen on the first go around, but it’s like a hairdresser. You’re not going to let your hair be bad. You’re going to keep going until you find the right hairdresser. You keep finding your tribe, it will make a difference.

That’s a great analogy.

The Struggles Of Self-Acceptance During Major Life Transitions

I know a lot of life is happening in between these but, Dad or College. “My insecurities were all bubbling up inside of me. How would I ever be accepted in this new environment? People will take one look at me and snicker. No one would want to be friends with anyone who had a few extra pounds on her. Where would I change my clothes so that no one would see? Would other people be able to see me naked in the shower?”

All those insecurities and things were so real to worry about. Not just not knowing. I consider myself a fearful person. I always have been not just scared of the dark and monsters under my bed and those kinds of things. As I said earlier, only scared to get out of my comfort zone. I’m scared to do something different and try something new. My father had a massive stroke at 46 the day after I graduated from high school and I was a daddy’s girl.

My parents had some marital issues a few years earlier and it became evident after my dad was sick. My mom was only 39 and when it was clear that my father was not going to recover. He was going to survive but he was going to be permanently disabled. I think that my mother thought to herself and this is me just conjecture, saying, “I’m not going to do this. This isn’t the life I envisioned,” especially because they weren’t in the best of marriages. Even though she did everything that was necessary to do for him, I was the one who did everything for him lovingly.

The idea now that I was going to leave and leave him “alone” again. She was not deserting him and kicking him on out of the street. He had to go through a lot of therapy and surgeries after that. To go then into a place that I was petrified to be going to was very difficult. In the end, I went but I was unsuccessful.

By unsuccessful, you mean you returned home or didn’t complete college.

I returned home around maybe November, so I did not receive any credits from that first semester but I returned home for a year and a half and attended a local University and commuted. I worked part-time and took care of my dad the rest of the time. I decided before my junior year, I realized I’m never going to get this time back. I’m never going to have a chance to have the typical college experience. I think my life a lot is been like that like getting nervous like, what if I don’t? What am I missing? Maybe I’ve got to give it a try. For the last two years, I transferred to a way to a different university that I started in. I went to three different universities but I did graduate.

That part, you graduated. CPA exam is no white matter.

That’s no joke.

We often get stuck on word didn’t go right or we’re looking like, I may have failed, versus the success. The saving of some money in the community college, versus those four-year institution.

No, it wasn’t a community college.

The two-year college locals, it was a savings.

It’s saving because I was home and I was working part time but it was a four-year university.

There’s something to be said for that and saving a couple of coins in the process because education is expensive.

For sure.

The Joys And Sorrows Of Unexpected Pregnancy After Infertility

My Annie, that’s a chapter in number eighteen.

I’m going to cry just hearing that.

“I never got to teach her how important it was to become a strong independent woman.”

I struggled with infertility and as I said earlier, I have two sons. It took three in vitro fertilization each to get them. With my younger son, it was a real long shot and he was a complete miracle. I was 39 when I had him. I had never gotten pregnant on my own other than the in vitro fertilizations. When he was two, I got pregnant and I just couldn’t believe it. I called my infertility doctor screaming, like, “How is this possible? This is impossible. Now, at 42, I’m getting pregnant.” He said, “It does make sense.” because infertility issues were basically mine.

It was that I had prematurely aged eggs. He said as we go through menopause, our hormone balance or imbalance changes. Some of what I was lacking then has that little time where it kicks in. That’s why the change of life baby was not an uncommon thing. Anyhow, he told me, “We’ll put you on some of these meds after you’re pregnant but Deb, chances are 5% that you’re going to give birth to a baby. You come back every week and we’ll check it like we did with the in vitro.”

They do blood work and ultrasounds. Every week, I would hold my breath for that Tuesday when we go back to the appointment. Every week, it kept progressing appropriately until at ten weeks, he said, “I’ll tell you, you’ve done it. I can’t believe it. Now it’s 95% that you are going to go full term and have this baby.” I knew in my heart it was a girl. I have two boys. My grandmother that I was extremely close to was named Anne. She had died before I got married.

I knew that this was Annie. My OB was about 45 minutes from my house. I was released the OB. The next week, I went to the old people by myself. No big deal. Pregnancy number three. He took me into another room after examining me to do an ultrasound and said, “Deb. I’m so sorry. There’s no longer a heartbeat.” I couldn’t understand what having a miscarriage was like.

I had a friend who had many miscarriages. Now, this is me, not understanding. Before she had children, I thought, “I understand,” but after she had children, I thought, “At least you have kids,” because I couldn’t get pregnant. Now I know that’s not the case. It hurts. It’s still hurts. I sobbed when I wrote that. I even wasn’t even going to put it in the book. That’s 1 of 2 chapters I was not even going to put in the book. It was devastating.

What made you decide to place it in the book?

I decided in the end that my whole point is to inspire and have other people relate. I think the more points of possible connection there are, the better even if it’s something that was painful to revisit.

This book is very relatable. I know there’s a story of Gary. There’s a story of your life with him but I wanted our readers to understand this is a book more than the widow journey. This is a life journey that you are sharing that is relatable. More importantly, it’s an encouragement that we often need on this grief journey, to realize life may have some hearts parts in but we can still do it.

Happiest Memories Of Gary: Cherishing Special Moments In Love

Maybe someone can go, “On second thought, I could do this. I could maybe do this.” You talk about On Second Thought, I did this afraid. You did this scared but you didn’t not stop doing it. A lot of days, we wake up in this little journey wondering if I can do this again. To give some credence to the marriage into life, what are some of your happiest memories of Gary?

As I said, he had a great sense of humor and that was always number one on my list. To me, a sense of humor is so important. I want to laugh and I want someone who enjoys that. He was a very big football fan. Let me just say that I’ve always been a sports fan, too, but I wasn’t as into football. I was more into baseball. I used to play tennis but he turned me into a football fan. He grew up a mile in New York, in Queens, a mile from Shea Stadium. There’s no longer Shea Stadium, but at the time, that was the home of the Mets, the baseball team and the Jets, the football team. I was a Mets fan and from New York. New York is filtered with the Yankees fans.

I’m about to say there’s a big contention, depending on where you’re at and what that looks like because some of them are New Jersey. It’s a big mix there sometimes.

It was easy to be a Yankee fan because they were always winners and that’s for always losers pretty much. It’s the same thing with the Jets. We used to just suffer. Every Sunday or game day, we would get dressed in our Jets jerseys. When our kids were born, one had a picture at five days old in a Mets outfit and the other in a Jet’s outfit. Especially when the boys were little, this is like the VCR days. We would tape the game and then we would go do something.

Football is winter time. It’s cold in North East. We’re at a mall. The four of us got the Jets thing. Even our dog had a Jets collar and we’d be walking and the game might be over. Everyone would look at us and they go, “Can you believe that they lost that game or could you believe that played?” It was like, “We didn’t watch the game.”

We had created like Sunday rituals and it was such a fun happy day to look forward to. He was a real foodie. Even though I had a weight problem, I wasn’t. I never learned to cook. I never wanted to cook. I was very limited what I ate and he was the opposite. He would go to three supermarkets a week and for me, going to one supermarket a month is like torture and he loved it. Every game day, it felt like we’d go through stages but he would make us these amazing BLTs. Nothing fancy. They were amazing because if it were me, I slapped the stuff on.

I’m like, “What is taking you so long? There’s like three ingredients, toasted and a little mayonnaise. You have to do it just like this.” I was always like, “He’s right. This does taste extra good.” You said sit in his chair and I’d sit in my chair and scream at the stupid Jets who will always wound up doing something wrong but we were in it until the last minute. Those are some of the best memories.

If someone came to you for marriage advice, what would you tell them?

The same as everyone, 30 years is a heck of a lot of ups and downs, for sure. I think that you can’t put your expectations of yourself onto the other person. Only because I might react one way, doesn’t mean that’s the way he should or will react. That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong just because it’s different from me. It took me a while to understand the difference. That one isn’t right and one isn’t wrong. They’re only different.

That is realizing that person has a separate identity.

No matter how frustrating.

How Life’s Challenges Teach Us To Take Control

Sorry, I’m saying it slowly. Chapter 23, Becoming the Boss. “Once again, I had no choice. My life circumstances have forced me to face my fears and I had survived. I had done more than just surviving. I survived. Teaching me that I was capable of anything. I could do hard things. I could do anything I set my mind to. I needed to give myself more credit.”

I’m about to celebrate my 30th anniversary as having my own insurance agency and it was it was awful. Very awful. I think that if Gary wasn’t with me in this journey and a friend of mine who put herself on the line to give me this opportunity, if it weren’t for the two of them, I don’t know. If I would have talked it out because it was very difficult. Many things about it were difficult. One of the difficult things was that Gary and I started working together.

That was super challenging but at the end, everything wound up being a gift. It was the best thing that ever could have happened. You, me, and to us as a family but we had to persevere. It was not easy, for sure and it’s still. After many years, I know the ups and downs is cyclical. The lesson is, I am tougher than I thought. Pretty much anything and anytime that we get through and this is the perfect experience to say that we realized how tough we are because sometimes just getting up and walking outside every day is all we can do.

As the journey moves along, it’s other things that we face as a widow that are all new and scary. In the end, even now and if you’re on day five, looking back where you were five days ago, each day we’re learning something about ourselves. We’re doing something. We’re putting one foot in front of the other and that we’re proving to our self that we are stronger than we thought we ever could be.

Each day we're learning something about ourselves. We're proving to ourselves that we are stronger than we thought we ever could be. Share on X

Becoming A Widow And Moving Forward

I would agree. My last quote from this book and I say that, though, because she has a number two. “He was done suffering. Finally, no more pain. My Gary was at peace and I became a widow on December 30th, 2022.

It makes me feel very emotional a few years later. As you said, it doesn’t matter. It’s like a something magic happened at one year. “It’s one year, we’re all cured.” No. It hits you when you don’t think it’s going to hit you. On December 30th, I think it’s going to hit me but it hits you in times you don’t know. You never know what it is.

For anyone who had to watch their spouse suffer, you go through that horrible feeling of you want the suffering to end but you don’t want to say, “I want them to die,” because you don’t. Yet, what’s the point of when you know what the inevitable is of prolonging that. Watching this pain is just so hard. The second that they told me he is gone. I wanted him back. How could I have even wished for that? Even though I don’t feel guilty for feeling that way. I do understand. It’s just so hard.

It is, and I want to say thank you, how much you shared of yourself in this book. Even in that last sentence I read, what you shared before that and walking somebody through that because I would often say, the other thing that we struggle with are the what ifs in this journey of widowhood. Would you mind elaborating on some of your what ifs and how you’ve battled those?

I don’t remember in the second book if I talked about this because it’s pretty personal. Everything I wrote about is personal, so I don’t want to make it sound like, “I unleashed everything.” By personal, not about me-personal. Gary did suffer with anxiety and depression. Right before he was diagnosed with terminal blood cancer, he was hospitalized for depression for the first time in his life. He came out of it like all upbeat and had a fantastic outlook then, six weeks later gets a death sentence. It was just the cruelest timing.

In the beginning, he tried to keep a positive attitude but as soon as things started happening, he started slipping back into the depression and the anxiety. He turned 65 on October 28th of 2022. Right before his birthday, I could see it was getting much worse, the depression. The idea that it was his last birthday. I couldn’t read his mind and honestly, he was so closed off and angry that he wasn’t sharing anything with me other than his anger.

Long story short, I couldn’t get him out of bed. He wasn’t going to chemo. He was having chemo to try and prolong his life and he wasn’t doing anything. All the doctors said to me, “You’ve got to get him into a mental hospital.” The only way to do that, if somebody doesn’t voluntarily check themselves in is to be involuntarily committed and that’s not necessarily an easy thing to do. I wound up having to call 911 and they send someone out. Even though he never would have done it, he said, “Get out or I’m going to punch you or something.” They had to call the cops and it just turned into this horrible and horrific thing.

It was a long awful story. He wound up being hospitalized for over a month. He got out the beginning of December and died in the end of December. I’m going to say he hated me, but I like to think that wasn’t the case but he was so angry because he saw this as my fault. When he died, I thought, “I can’t believe that I put him through that,” because it was a terrible experience.

He was in two different places and it was just awful what happened to him. If I had only known. Why did I do that? Why was it necessary for me to do that? That’s the biggest thing that I’ve struggled with, this guilt that I did that and everyone just keeps reminding me. There wasn’t a doctor and he had a lot of different doctors who didn’t say, “You got to do this.”

Thank you, Debbie, for sharing that. I like to share something with you when I am coaching people and we’re dealing with the what ifs. We know yesterday’s lottery numbers. We know them. It doesn’t do us any good now but when we struggle with the what ifs, we’re using our knowledge on a path situation just like we know yesterday’s lottery numbers. We can look back at that situation have all the answers of what could have and should have been done.

The majority of the time, we did the best that we knew how to do with the knowledge that we had. Most of the time, we meant no ill intent. We had the knowledge. We were making decisions that we thought were best and that is all that it is. The most difficult part sometimes of this widow journey is a reality of how much we do not have control of life, our existence and the things that we cannot change and we cannot do in coming to peace and settling in the way things played out.

I appreciate that and I do know that with the information I had at the time, I did what I thought was right and which everyone thought was right.

Advice For The Younger Debbie

If you could pick any time in your life and you could speak to younger you, what spirit would you pick and what would you tell her?

I would pick teenage Debbie and I would tell her that just because you have thick, thighs and a large hip, you are a strong, smart, and highly capable person who is worthy of love.

Just because you have thick thighs and large hips doesn’t mean that you are not a strong, smart, highly capable person who is worthy of love. Share on X

Are you loving Debbie?

I am. I think for the first time in my life, I can honestly say that.

Key Takeaways From “The Sprinkle Effect”

That is beautiful. What is inspirational for the Sprinkle Effect?

One of the things when I started taking this course about how to write a book was, they said, “You have to decide what book you want to write.” I’m like, “What do you mean what kind of book?” “A biography, a memoir, or a self-help.” I’m like, “I don’t know. Why would I have ever given that any thought?” That was one of the things when I wrote On Second Thought… Maybe I Can. It was going to be am I going to tell the stories and at the end, you know how sometimes in a book they’ll have a little box at the end of, “This is what I learned from this period in my life.”

I decided that I didn’t want to do that. I wanted the reader to extrapolate for themselves, what they got from reading that chapter. The part three talks about how I have changed my life from 50 to now. I’m in my 60s now. I didn’t talk about that. The second book came out of, “Now I have to tell people what changed, what did I learn, what kind of ideas and habits have I developed in the last decade.” That’s where the Sprinkle Effect came from. It’s because it’s a little sprinkle of this and a little sprinkle of that. Ice cream is my favorite food but I don’t like hot fudge sundaes. I just like ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and so sprinkles. They make me happy and so, a little sprinkle can change your life.

There are fifteen different types of sprinkles in the content and I want to cover three because the introduction caught me also. Introduction, A Sprinkle of Possibilities. “Do you feel like life is passing you by leaving you call on a hamster wheel without real progress? Are you unhappy with how things have turned out, perhaps facing a major life transition? Ten years ago, I would have answered yes to all these questions. I was exhausted, overwhelmed and resigned to a life that felt out of my out of my control.”

As I said, I took care of my dad. I lived 30 years from that day that he has the stroke and I was his caregiver. I was his person. I had to worry about his money, where he lived, his medical things, and where I was going to go on a holiday. Everything. He passed away when my oldest son was about ten. My oldest son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum at two. That was a whole other type of caregiving and then Gary had developed, both physical and mental illness about 10 or 15 years before he died. That was a whole long process as well.

All I did was put out fires, help people and as I said, on that hamster wheel, that to do list. I got to do this and this, especially when my kids were like 8 years old or 9 years old or 10 years old and up until like high school. It was where they have to go. It was just work, taking care of, money and just managing everything and not having a chance to breathe. Not feeling in control and feeling exhausted. I was ready to explode at any minute. Somebody could just say hello and I might start screaming at them, literally, especially my family.

I was not paying attention to my health. It wasn’t even just like the diet and exercise. It was my mental health. I just said yes. I was not going to let anyone down. I believed like I wore a red cape and I had the S in superhero and if you needed me, I was helping you. I was volunteering to be treasurer of three different organizations simultaneously while I’m doing this and running my insurance agency. It’s like, “What? What was I thinking?”

I was making it harder on myself by not practicing the self-care habit of saying no. Say no. It’s okay. They’ll find someone else. If they don’t like you because you can’t do it. I was causing a lot of the problem but that’s one of the things that I needed to start to understand about my part and what was going on. It wasn’t just what was going on around me.

That is a lesson for us all to learn. Thank you. Chapter 8, A Sprinkle of Vision. “Violet often is associated with imagination and spiritual insight. Violet is a perfect for vision. Visualization is purposeful and planned. The idea is to see yourself doing the thing you want to accomplish. In your mind, you go through the steps necessary to achieve your goals.”

Athletes do this all the time. I say in the beginning of the book, “I’m not a science person. All I can tell you is I know there is science behind this. That your mind doesn’t know the difference if it’s happening for real or not.” It’s like muscle memory. That’s why athletes envision themselves running the race, catching the football or swimming the meat. Whatever it is over and over again. It’s like you visualize it into reality and it’s different than dreaming, sitting there and dreaming, “I wish my life could be like this.”

It is something that’s purposeful. Maybe it’s sitting and imagining what you want your dream life to be. I remember and I say it in another chapter, I think the one right before it, about I had gone through this course. They were like, “What was your dream day be?” I thought, I don’t know. I never thought think that. I would think, “I want to win the lottery,” or something like that but that’s so general. Even if I won the lottery, what would I do? What would I want that day to look like?

When you start to think about it and break it down, that’s what started my whole process of learning about the visioning process of having to think, what would I be wearing? Where would I be? What would I have for breakfast? All of that and then reading it and visualizing exactly what that would look, taste, and smell. The whole idea is to engage all your senses. It is a powerful tool that I never gave any thoughts of using.

I would agree. That is important because if not, we’re left with just what we see and where we’re at. It takes the ability to envision something different. Maybe it’s to envision the day that you don’t cry anymore. Maybe it’s to envision the day that you laugh every day that week. Maybe it’s to envision that I can find joy in life again and see yourself walking on the beach, being able to talk to friends, having a conversation, and going roller skating.

Taking the leap and giving yourself permission to not just dream but see yourself in that space and say, “It’s okay for me to continue my journey and be happy.” With that, I want to cover a Sprinkle of Joy, number fifteen. “Often, yellow. Often seen as bright, cheerful, and uplifting. Yellow symbolizes happiness, positivity, and warmth. I used to roll my eyes at the idea of a gratitude journal and daily affirmations. It all seemed like bluff to me.”

 

 

“I remember the first time I attended an online business Mastermind meeting. A group where business owners share ideas and support each other. The facilitator introduced us to tell everyone what we’re grateful for before posting our questions to the group. What kid of nonsense is this? What is the point? I decided it was a leaders adding filler in order to waste time.” What would you say now?

I was so wrong and I never would have realized it because the only thing that made me realize, I thought, “Oh.” I did. I can remember thinking, “You got to be kidding me. What do you want me to tell you, I’m grateful for my dog? I am grateful for my dog. That’s going to change because I tell you I’m grateful for my dog? I thought it was nonsense. At the time, I had a business coach and for goodness sakes, wouldn’t you know? She sent me a gratitude journal as a gift. I’m looking right at it.

Get it, girl. I want to see it.

Inside, and I wrote this in my book. I wrote about a specific day in my entries. Each day had two pages, a morning and a night. It asked you specific questions. The morning ones said, “What’s today’s focus, an affirmation, what I’m grateful for, what I’m excited about, and how I make space for gratitude.” Every day, I would scratch my head, especially under like, what am I grateful for. I would write the same things every day. The same general stuff and then I realized, “Maybe it’s not just as big as my kids, my house, or whatever.”

It started like, I turned to this page, which was February 1st, 2022. That’s what I happened to turn to and what I’m grateful for was my online community, Gary getting up out of bed for several days, and Valentine’s Day decorations because I love Valentine’s Day. That’s my favorite holiday. It’s next to Christmas. It’s a close one, but Valentine’s Day. What wound up happening was, after a while, I noticed that I started noticing things that I never paid attention to ever before.

I almost scared myself and thought I was like forcing it to happen but I wasn’t. I was out walking the dog and usually, I’d be on my phone. I was looked up and I noticed how blue the sky was or the trees moving in the breeze. I don’t want to say I’m not a nature person but I’m not someone who appreciated anything about nature. I thought, “Look at that.” It was like I was searching for something to put in my journal that was different but it didn’t come out of like a phoniness and it’s changed my life.

It changed my life and it helped me as a widow because I realized no matter how bad and no matter how sorry I felt for myself or how sad I was and still am and every day, I can always find something to be grateful for and it changes your outlook. It truly does. I was wrong. Yet, again, just another thing completely wrong about but now, I’m thinking, “I want to make my own gratitude journal for others to fill out,” and I’m thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is ridiculous.”

Every day, always find something to be grateful for. Share on X

It’s because now it turned into something that is so powerful. I don’t use this particular Journal anymore because I was having trouble fitting in. The morning part for me was easy but the evening, I couldn’t figure out. I couldn’t figure out how to do it and that was okay. It didn’t matter because it taught me the lesson I needed to learn.

We covered a lot in this conversation. I appreciate you joining me. Did we cover everything you wanted to talk about or is there anything that you wish we would have tapped into?

Let me say, thank you so much for taking the time to read the books and to pick out just some wonderful highlights and great questions. I think you have thoroughly gone through my life. Thank you.

You’re welcome. If you have any questions with me or maybe anything you have with me, I like to give the opportunity to ask me questions.

I just want to say to you, I think the few times that we’ve spoken prior to this, I am so grateful for what you do because you’ve created a community that’s so needed and the advice and the information that you give to all of us who are in this widowhood together. We need people like you. Thank you.

Thank you. I was a solicited. I will say thank you. I will let you close out this conversation. If this was your show, I’ll let you wrap it up.

I’ll wrap it up with something else that I used to think was nonsense, which was, I couldn’t stand how everyone like in yearbooks and stuff would have a quote that they lived by, I could not understand. Even, in junior high, you have a quote that you live by at like thirteen. I don’t have a quote. Now, I have a quote and it means something very different than I ever realized. Until one day, I read it and thought about it very differently.

The quote is from Glenda, the good witch from the Wizard of Oz, who said, “You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.” I used to think that meant, “Dorothy, all you had to do was tap your heels three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’” That isn’t what she’s saying. She’s saying that each of us has the power. We just don’t know it and once we know it, then the sky’s the limit.

Each of us has the power. We just don't know it, but once we know it, then the sky's the limit. Share on X

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Tina.

Important Links

• Debbie Weiss
• On Second Thought… Maybe I Can
• Sprinkle Effect
• @Debbie.R.Weiss on Instagram
• @DebbieRWeiss on TikTok
• Maybe I Can Facebook Group

About Debbie Weiss

For most of my life, my set of beliefs was fairly consistent with my upbringing and life experience. Certainly, all of us are shaped by the people, places, and circumstances of our lives. I was not one to ever question those beliefs. I just assumed they were correct and to be quite honest, I never really gave it any thought.

My life changed forever the day after I graduated from high school when my Dad had a massive stroke. He survived and I was his primary caregiver for the next 30 years. This was the beginning of me taking care of everyone else at the expense of myself.

I was and still am a “fixer” and a “problem solver”. I have a strong desire to be the one to help, which is admirable (if I do say so myself 😋), however, I sacrificed my own well-being in the process.

My belief was “it is what it is”. It’s not like I have a choice.

My life has always been about doing everything for everyone else without giving much consideration to my own needs and wants. I would hear what other people were doing and often be jealous and think, “that must be nice, but I can’t do that”. Anyone who offered a suggestion, I always had a reason why “I can’t do it”. Other people can, but I can’t.

Until I turned 50 and realized that this is it. This is my one and only life and I don’t want to look back years from now with regret for the things I haven’t done.

Maybe I can try something new.

Maybe I can put myself first.

Maybe I can take control of my future.

Maybe I can live the life of my dreams.

After all, other people do it, so why not me?

I’m done with my excuses and ready to take back my life and I know exactly how I’m going to do it.