'These people get me.' Widows, widowers find new hope, life after losing spouse

LANSING — Penny Munson couldn't stop crying in the months after her husband Robert died in January 2022.

Songs on the radio reminded her of him, and memories of their 27 years together popped into her head constantly. All of it made her weep. One day, as she pushed a shopping cart down a grocery store aisle, she passed a display filled with bananas and thought, "Robert loved bananas," before bursting into tears.

Munson, 73, couldn't understand why until she started attending a grief support and social group offered through the Lansing area's Gorsline Runciman Funeral Homes.

During the month-long support program, and lunches, mall walks and game get-togethers that followed, Munson met others struggling with losing a loved one. They have taught her grief is messy, comes in waves, and is best faced when supported by like-minded friends.

"I went and met lots of nice people who are going through the same crap," Munson said. "I found out normal is not what you think it is."

Gorsline Runciman has been offering care following the loss of a loved one to the community since 1974, but in 2007 that program, Life's Landscapes, expanded to include Living Information For Today, which added social offerings for widows and widowers. Some participants have used the funeral home's services when their loved one died, but the activities are open to anyone, Program Director Deborah Sydlowski said.

Grief support programs are growing in importance because widowhood is prevalent among older adults, according to recent data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Most widows and widowers are over the age of 65, according to the data . And an estimated 58% of women and 28% of men aged 75 and older who participated in the latest census had experienced the death of a spouse.

In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were 368,984 widows in Michigan older than 15 and 120,097 widowers over that age. In Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties, the U.S. Census estimated that year there were 14,225 widows and 3,612 widowers.

Through Gorsline Runciman's LIFT group, participants not only share in each other's grief, but offer support, build new friendships and take part in social outlets for people who are suddenly alone. LIFT has even led to new romantic relationships.

'I call them my dead walking people'

Grief counselor Gwen Kapcia oversaw the grief support programs at Gorsline Runciman Funeral Homes for two decades, until 2014. She was with the program when LIFT was established.

People in the program started taking group walks together and meeting for lunches and games. Kapcia watched as kinship and friendships formed outside of the organized activities she was planning.

"I am closer to people in this group than I am to my family," participants have told her. "Yes, I love my family, but these people get me, these people know me."

The devotion people developed for one another surprised Kapcia. She remembers watching one woman invite seven other widows from the group to a dinner commemorating the first anniversary of her marriage to her late husband following his death. She found out later they were the only people who showed up at the restaurant.

"I noticed they did all sorts of life together and it has been a bonding and support for people in a way that I didn't even dream possible," Kapcia said.

Fifteen years later, LIFT's offerings have grown. So have the bonds people have created through it.

Munson has been participating for nearly two years, and like many people who attend, she has no plans to stop. Many of the program's regulars have been gathering for its weekly activities for over a decade; they've created lasting friendships, and about a dozen are now married to or in lasting relationships with other members.

Only fellow members could understand the humor behind Munson's nickname for their weekly walking group, which meets at the Meridian Mall every Thursday and continues with breakfast at a local restaurant.

"I call them my dead walking people," she said, and life after her loss has been bearable because of them. "I could have done it by myself but this made it so much easier."

The misconceptions surrounding grief are numerous, Kapcia said.

"People think there's closure," she said. "They think it's linear, meaning that there's a step-by-step process and if you go through the steps or you go through a whole year there's some magical end."

None of that is true, she explained, and people who are grieving need space to talk about the person they lost and the way they feel about it, but their family and friends often avoid those topics.

"The key to support is finding someone that will listen to the words, so whether it's someone individually, like me, who's a professional that talks to people individually, or even more so than that, someone who's walking this road at the same time or a little bit ahead of you," she said.

'You always feel like the fifth wheel'

Bill Birney's wife of 45 years, Janet, had been gone several months when he went to his first grief support walk in 2011. He'd felt sorry for himself in the months after her death, but kept busy with work and home projects. He made himself join the walking group and remembers immediately feeling common ground with the people he met.

"I got out of my truck and looked up and there's 25 people just like me, some with a lot worse stories, some older, some younger," Birney, 80, said.

One of the walkers was Toni Tenlen, 84. Her husband Thomas had died a year earlier. She attended a few other area grief groups before finding the program.

"All you did was sit around and talk about sad things," Tenlen said, of the other grief support groups, but the LIFT program through local Gorsline Runciman Funeral Homes offered real connections.

"We were all in the same boat," she said. "You know, you have friends when you're married, that are couples and they want to keep including you but it's different. You always feel like the fifth wheel."

Birney and Tenlen found each other through the group. They've been a couple for several years, live in Laingsburg together, and still attend weekly events through the program.

"They all became our new family," Tenlen said.

'We don't sit around being down. We laugh a lot'

Becky Ruttan spent a decade caring for her husband Duane, whose health had long been in decline before he died in 2023.

"I had been his caregiver for so long," she said. "My whole life revolved around my husband’s illness."

When he died “everything just came to a stop and then you have to find out who you are," Ruttan said. That's been so much easier to do, thanks to the new friends she's made at LIFT.

"I have met some really supportive, very good friends through this group and we're active," she said. "We end up going out weekly. We go to a show and to dinner on the weekend."

Before participating in the program, she was isolated and had no interest in things she once enjoyed. Now, she has friends she can talk about all of it with.

"We've all been in it together and you can talk about," she said. "These friends don't back away from it."

Jan Gee has been part of the program for nearly 15 years. She remembers attending her first luncheon at Coral Gables in East Lansing, less than a year after her husband Jack died in 2009.

"I just went by myself and I found a lot of friends and kept going," she said. "I haven't looked back and I'm still with them. Everybody gets along great. We don't sit around being down. We laugh a lot. We're like family."

Learn more about Life's Landscapes and LIFT

For Gorsline Runciman, the programs and support group are a community service, Sydlowski said. The company spends money to offer it, but the cost to participants is minimal.

"What (participants are) doing is developing brand new relationships," Sydlowski said. "And I have to tell you that even though we're giving them a really beautiful template for them to come and feel comfortable, and learn to laugh again and to reach out to others again and to manage their own daily living experiences they take it even further. It's as if they're beginning anew."

To learn more, call Sydlowski, the community relations manager for Dignity Memorial Michigan Metro Market of Gorsline Runciman Funeral Homes, at 517-337-9745.

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Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on X @GrecoatLSJ .

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: 'These people get me.' Widows, widowers find new hope, life after losing spouse