What to do for working mom of two that just lost her husband?

[matthewg22]

@jeremiah17 My MIL sent thank you cards to people who sent her condolence cards! (She also sent them to people who sent flowers, food, etc) I thought she was crazy, but she wanted to.

 

[photine]

@matthewg22 Sometimes corresponding with people who cared enough to reach out is a respite from the loneliness and sorrow.

 

[jjambow]

@chrisitanmom After my late husband passed I wrote one thank you card on a google doc that my sister sent out on a variety of platforms for me. The support I received from my community necessitated a personal response but I did not have the bandwidth to individualize. And I really wanted to make sure others knew how much their support kept me afloat. This seemed to work well for the situation and I’d highly recommend for anyone dealing with loss in the future.

 

[smjd45]

@hman Child care would be a big one. She'll need time to plan the funeral, deal with insurance (life insurance, potentially health insurance due to cause of death), potentially dealing with his belongings, and then just time for her to grieve on her own, without having to put up a front for her children. Offer to babysit or find a babysitter for her. Take her kids somewhere fun for the day a few times. Don't ask her when she wants one - tell her "hey you're getting a babysitter on this day from this time to this time. Does that work?" If it doesn't she can let you know, but if it does then she just has to agree and no additional planning is needed from her. Even if all you do is offer to pay for daycare for a week, that still would be helpful!

And remember that she'll probably have a lot of help for the first few months. It's usually after about 3-4 months that the meals and offers of help start to disappear, because that's when everyone else has started moving on with their lives. That's a good time to reach out to her again, let her know that there's still people thinking about her.

 

[gareth18]

@hman A coworker lost her husband a year ago while pregnant with their 2nd child.
Exec management gave her a 6 week paid leave. Upper management group sent her a $300 DoorDash gift card the day after we found out. And then we also got a link to a go fund me page that had already been set up by a close friend of hers and shared that with everyone who works in our location - around $5000 was raised by our group alone.
As many of us as possible also attended the funeral (about 20 of us) to show our love and support.
While it may seem impersonal, I really do think that cash/gift cards can be one of the most helpful gifts so the impacted person/their support system can allocate those funds where they are needed (funeral costs, childcare, cleaning service, etc).

 

[garfield77]

@gareth18 I can’t even imagine anywhere I’ve ever worked doing all of that; that’s amazing

 

[goddard12]

@hman As someone who lost their dad while they were a child, for the love of god don’t do frozen meals. Everyone else is going to think of frozen meals already. I am 25 years old and I still cannot stomach lasagna, and I’m Italian. We threw away so many giant tin trays of lasagna.

And honestly, she’s not going to want to cook either. I lived off of peanut butter sandwiches for a year, sometimes only spoonfuls of peanut butter, because my mom was so out of it and only barely functioned on autopilot after losing her soulmate. She’s gonna need very basics of groceries, help with laundry, cleaning, mowing, childcare help, and some time off so she can process as well. But the biggest thing, people & help offers disappear after a few weeks. Most don’t last long after 3 months. And the after, that’s when help is most needed. Anything you say now, she will not remember. Words don’t amount to much. A message of “let me know if you need anything” is not helpful. A “I am getting groceries, what do you want/need.” Or maybe an instacart order? Hiring a cleaning crew or a lawncare worker would be nice and helpful.

When my dad passed away, there were also people in my community that would take my siblings out for the day. They’d go to an aquarium, fishing, visit the fire station, fun things to make them happy but also give my mom (and me, I turned into what they call the 3rd parent) a break.

 

[hollyroller7]

@hman I agree that Uber eats and/or doordash gift cards can be helpful, however, I would make sure with people close to her that these are things she actually uses. Not everyone uses these services, and then she’d have to go through the process of figuring out downloading the app, having to put in payment info, etc.

I would also ask her friends if she would be interested in a version of a meal train but with childcare. Like, set up a schedule where someone signs up to watch her kids from X to Y time each day for as many days as she needs. That way she can determine which hours of the day and how long would be helpful to her and someone can take that off her plate.