We at the Widower's Toolbox would like to extend our sympathies to you if you are visiting this site as the result of the loss of a loved one.   Please know that you are not alone and that others have traveled a similar path as your own.  Please take a moment and peruse this website as a good place to start to begin to repair your life from loss.  Read below to learn more about the book that started it all...


The Widower's Toolbox:  
Repairing Your Life After Losing Your Spouse
by Gerald J. Schaefer with Tom Bekkers, MSW, ACSW

              The grieving process following the loss of one’s spouse is arguably the most personalized and difficult experience one may ever face.  While the grieving process is individualized regardless of gender, there are distinct differences in the manner in which males and females grieve.  There is no right way to grieve; however this book focuses on the characteristics that make the healing process unique to bereaved men, and serves as a repair manual to make healing more complete and ultimately effective.  Men strive to keep grief to themselves, maintain emotional control, and refrain from asking for help.  The Widower’s Toolbox allows bereaved men to continue to fulfill the image society has of them as strong problem solvers that can fix anything including their grief – because it is written specifically for them in a format of a take action approach, with the security of a repair reference at their side. 

The Widower’s Toolbox shares the direct experiences of the author who lost his wife and mother of his two sons, to illustrate life is worth living after loss.  Each chapter targets specific concerns where bereaved men struggle to reassemble their fractured lives.  The reader is reassured through added dialog from eight other widowers that the reader’s feelings are shared by others and that grief is survivable.  For the reader who wants the details, each chapter also explains the academic viewpoint why they may be experiencing certain feelings by explanation of a clinical psychotherapist.   Ultimately, this book channels the reader’s grief into healing tasks based upon the reflection of their past relationship and how it can propel them to a brighter future.