The Current27:10How a widow found out about her husband’s dark secrets
When Jessica Waite’s husband, Sean, suddenly passed away from a heart attack in 2015 while on a business trip to Houston, she was left in shock.
But the Calgary writer’s life would take another heartbreaking turn.
The day after his funeral, she received a box of his personal belongings mailed from Houston, which led her to discover many devastating secrets he had kept from her — infidelity, drug abuse, compulsive spending, hidden debt and an addiction to pornography.
“It was just one shocking revelation after another. I felt extremely betrayed,” Waite told The Current‘s host Matt Galloway.
“I went from having the rug yanked out with grief to then having it yanked out with an idea that my whole had been a lie, and like ‘Was anything that this person ever said true?'”
Waites writes about this experience in her new memoir The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards.
She described attending Camp Widow in Toronto as a transformative experience.
The annual event, which brings together people who have lost their partners, is billed as a weekend of emotional healing through activities like workshops, a banquet and dance. The organizers say it is designed to help participants connect with others who have similarities in their losses, whether in terms of timing, cause of death, or geographic location.
“[Grief] is so isolating and it feels so unique, partly because it is unique. I’m the only me, that lost the only Sean, that there ever will be in this whole world,” said Waite.
“You know in your head that it’s universal, but when you’re amongst people — every single one of them who has gone through some version of this — you know it in a different way. And so I felt so much less alone.”
She also learned to accept the loss of a flawed partner.
“One of my biggest discoveries was … there’s things that everyone doesn’t miss about the person that they love, so just allowing [for] human imperfection — the ways that we all try and fail in life — was a huge part of Camp Widow for me,” she said.
‘A gritty hope’
In November, about 250 people from across North America came together for the largest Camp Widow event so far, held at a hotel in Toronto.
Jodi Skeates, the founding director of Soaring Spirits Canada, the Fredericton-based charity that organizes Camp Widow, says the organization aims to inspire hope. She says individuals who have “lost [their] person” often experience deep, overwhelming hopelessness as they struggle to figure out what their next step will be.
“It isn’t like a sparkly, shining diamond-like hope. It’s a gritty hope. It’s the hope that you got to work hard for,” said Skeates, who lives in Burlington, Ont.
“You have to keep finding it. Sometimes hope can be for the long term, and sometimes it’s just for the next moment. But it matters.”
Steven Sousa, from Ajax, Ont., has been attending Camp Widow in the five years since losing his wife Maggie to breast cancer in 2019. He said he’s grateful the camp has allowed him to connect with others who understand his experience, particularly because people often assume, incorrectly, that men are able to move on or get over grief quickly.
“My first men’s group here at Camp Widow was so overwhelming and so emotional … I can actually talk to other guys who get it.”
He also says that while each person comes to Camp Widow with their own story — whether they’ve lost their partner through illness, suicide or an accident — there are shared experiences in the emotional aftermath and grieving process.
When Janice Martin lost her wife, Karin, to cancer in 2011, she was surprised to discover that there was no grief support group for queer spouses at the time.
Attending Camp Widow in Tampa, Fla., in 2018, she was able to participate in an LGBTQ breakout group.
“I could explain that sometimes it feels invisible to be a queer widow because there’s less acceptance of a relationship sometimes from our families [and] the public,” she said.
Martin, who lives in Toronto, has seen the growth of programming for queer spouses at Camp Widow over the years, and says it is a place that fosters inclusivity, safety and hope.
“The hope is apparent all around us. I have re-partnered now [with] my partner of three years. I think it’s a good sign [that] I am able to love again,” she said.
“I feel that is what healing and hope looks like. To try to just keep moving forward; not getting over Karin, but going forward.”
LISTEN | Grieving partners come together at Camp Widow:
The Current18:29Widows work through their grief at Camp Widow
More grief support needed in Canada
Heather Mohan is a grief counsellor and the executive director of Lumara Grief & Bereavement Care Society, a charity headquartered in Parksville, B.C., that runs a family bereavement retreat called Camp Kerry.
In a community, she says, people not only share their own stories to feel seen, heard and validated, but create space for others to do the same. People often feel “existentially cut off from [their] sense of order and the world” after losing a partner, says Mohan, so participating in a community event can have a profound impact.
“When you’re in that space, knowing that you still have value and worth and you can contribute is really important,” she said.
Mohan points out that Canada lacks a national bereavement strategy.
The Canadian Grief Alliance (CGA) has been pushing the federal government for a national strategy on grief, and advocating for better access to support, increased public education on the topic, and dedicated funding for grief research.
In May, the group published the findings of a survey conducted from November to December 2023. The results reflect the responses of 3,874 Canadians who responded to a call for participants by the Canadian Grief Alliance, and are not necessarily reflective of all types of grief or all Canadians.
The survey reported that 50 per cent of respondents felt unsupported in their grief, and 83 per cent said they would like to be asked about their loss.
Three-quarters of respondents who had sought support said they found it most helpful to engage with others, including through community grief programs and peer support groups.
Findings from the survey will be presented to Health Canada in 2025 to help inform a national strategy, according to the group’s website.
Mohan said she hopes having a strategy in place would help secure funding for grief-support charities.
“I have to raise a lot of money every year to keep these programs going. If somebody would just say, ‘Here you guys go, go do your work,’ I would love that. I could do way more work,” she said.
Jessica Waite said she believes grief must be confronted, not avoided, in a culture that often refuses to acknowledge it.
“I think that we find what’s behind it — if we stay with the feelings long enough, the discomfort of it — is the love,” she said.
“It’s the love that we had for this person coming back in full force. And who doesn’t want to feel love and vitality again?”