Grief is a topic no one wants to study, or learn about, until you are in it. It’s a “if it hasn’t happened to me yet, I certainly don’t want to mention it” kind of thing. Herb Knoll lost his wife Michelle to cancer in 2008 after having been her care giver for 39 months. When Herb went to find a book about grief as a widower, he discovered there were none! So, Herb began researching and writing his book The Widower’s Journey: Helping Men Rebuild After Their Loss, available on Amazon. After completing the book Herb decided there still wasn’t enough support for Widowers, so he started the Widower’s Support Network.  Herb is also founder and host for the Widower’s Journey Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/widowers-journey/id1473762540). 

Please join us for an interesting discussion with Herb Knoll on today’s Hope Thru Grief as we touch on subjects like why are men so vulnerable, why the support material for widower’s so limited and what are the challenges in grief for men?

If you’d like to purchase a copy of Herb’s book The Widower’s Journey: Helping Men Rebuild After Their Loss you may contact Herb directly at Herb@widowerssupportnetwork.com and if you mention the discount code Hope you’ll receive a 15% discount of the purchase price of his book!

We welcome your comments and questions! Send an email to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!

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Website: http://hopethrugrief.com.

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Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org

Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical, or mental health treatment, please contact a medical, or mental health professional immediately.

Thank you

Marshall Adler

Steve Smelski

I love everybody and welcome to today's

episode of Hope Thru Grief.

I'm Steve Smelski and I'm here with my good friend and cohost Marshall Adler

Hello, everybody.

Hope everybody's doing well today.

We have a special show for you today.

We have a guest speaker with us today, Mr.

Herb Knoll.

He's a friend of ours and we've gotten to know him over the last few years.

I think you're going to enjoy his story and all of the

different things that he's doing.

Marshall why don't I turn it back to you and we'll start with our first question.

Thank you, Steve.

Herb, first of all, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to be a guest today.

And before we start, I want to tell our audience, you know, Herb's a great guy

because of before we, uh, went on air.

Herb and I were reminiscing about both growing up Buffalo, New York, which is the

greatest city in the western hemisphere.

So any, anybody from Buffalo is a softs part of my soft spot in my heart.

And in herb is a Buffalo Bills fan like I am so we're, I just want to get

that on the record before we start.

So Herb, uh, I do want to get serious here and.

If you can please tell us your story and your journey of loss and grief.

I think that'd be a good place to start.

Okay.

Sure.

And thank you for the invitation to be with you today.

Um, my wife, uh, her name was Michelle, uh, was diagnosed with

pancreatic cancer at the age of 49.

And that was 15 years ago.

Or almost almost 16.

Um, so that started a 39 month journey of caregiving.

And I had a lot of help from neighbors and such.

She had to have 150 chemo treatments.

So it costs me 300 lunches because they would go to lunch and the neighbors

who escorted her to the treatment.

So I could still go to my job.

And it was, it was difficult.

I mean, I watched her fade away from a size 10 to an eight to a six to a four

to a two to a zero over that 39 months span by, she passed in March of 2008.

And I'm a banker by trade and we were new.

I had accepted a position in San Antonio, Texas with a bank, and

we' were new and we were just, we hadn't even emptied all of our boxes.

And that's when she died.

And so about four months later, I was in my office and my routine was

get up and be in the office by four, worked like crazy all day and then

go home at about seven and crash.

And that was my life.

That was the extent of it.

And one of my young employees came into my office.

I mean, she was only about 19 years old, but she had the

courage to tell me something.

And she said, everybody on the floor misses your laughter because

I'm a pretty gregarious guy.

And I realized when she told me that, that I wasn't handling my grief well enough.

So I decided to seek out help.

I went to my church and frankly, I was disappointed because they didn't

have anything, not even a hotline number, not, not a flyer or brochure.

They just, I find a tremendous number of churches are ill prepared to deal

with grief, which really staggers me.

I mean, It surprises me that, uh, when people think of death, they think of their

house of worship and they come together and, but the clergy just aren't prepared.

They're not trained.

In fact, in most colleges seminaries, they don't even teach grief.

It's not even on the curriculum.

So anyhow, I learned that after the fact, then I went to the veterans

administration because I'm a disabled vet.

And they assigned a counselor to me, which was helpful.

But then I went to Barnes and Noble and I asked the gentleman behind the counter.

Do you have anything for a widower?

Well, he typed widower in his computer's search engine.

He then looked up at me and he said, Mr.

I don't have a damn thing for you.

Wow.

Now you said let's go over to the bookcase and see what we can find.

And we found 15 books, all written for widows, and he said some of

the chapters may apply to you, but I don't have a book for widowers.

Well, I had been published in the past and I decided right there and

then that I was going to write a book.

I said, someone better write this book and it might as well be me.

So a few months later I left my position.

I was a senior officer in banking.

I left my career of 38 years to begin my research of my book, and I spent eight

years researching it and publishing it.

And I had, I reached out to 40 widowers.

From all different markets, segments, demographics, conditions

of the how the wife passed and they were my subject matters.

They were, they tolerated me for eight years coming up with questions.

They answered on 11 page single space questionnaire for me.

I mean, I really went deep and then I went and found professional staff

like attorneys, psychologists, sociologists, medical doctors, uh, clergy.

And I surrounded myself with the and then I was able to publish the book.

And, uh, three years ago, since that time, the book has become a play and it won best

new play of the year in upstate New York.

It played at the alleyway theater in Buffalo.

Wow.

Oh Wow

And it's called I'm Fine.

And the name I'm Fine came from one of my subjects, one of the widowers

subjects that, um, he said, I asked him once, what's the best thing that ever

happened to you during your grief journey?

And he said, when I told my family and friends, I'm fine,

leave me alone with my thoughts.

They ignored my instructions and forced their way into my life.

And I'm so grateful they did.

So anyhow, she came to play.

So that's how I lost my wife.

And then I decided that I needed to do more.

So I created the Widowers Support Network and it has several different

components in it, but the most popular one is my men's only Facebook page.

So you have to apply and you have to be either a widower, or a

caregiver, or a sympathetic man who wants to help those, those members.

And I have over a thousand men that I care for and we give

them content every single day.

And I find that reaching out to the men gave me purpose

and men have to have purpose.

In fact, I teach that, that you have to find that in yourself, And the

men that I find that join my group come from really all walks of life.

They are PhDs, they are professors, they are garbage men.

They are unemployed.

The conditions that their wives have died, varied completely from

childbirth to murder, to suicide.

I mean, we get the whole gamut and what we do is we listen to them, we comfort

them and we encourage them and we give them content like on Sundays, we pay

respect to the Christian community.

We also talk sports on Sunday .On Mondays we talk about

money in your personal finance.

On Tuesday, we have music and we have columnist.

I have nine columnists that write columns for me, and they are either authors

of books or they're widowed or theirs.

They have a reason to be there on Wednesdays.

We talk about their health.

And more column is more columnist on Thursdays.

On Fridays, we remembered the Jewish faith.

We talked sports again on Thursday.

On Saturday, we talk about handyman's corner and how to fix things around

the house because so many men are capable of running a corporation,

but they can't balance the checkbook.

They can't pay the paper, boy.

I mean, they are totally incompetent without a wife.

And especially, especially if they hit, if they grew up with a doting

mother who met their every need.

And then she even went out and found him a doting wife, and

then she continued the saga.

Well, those guys are in deep trouble and we throw them a life raft.

So, um, And it's the most gratifying thing I've ever done.

Herb, that's amazing.

I just like to follow up.

I'm not sure if you know this.

I met Steve after my son, Matt passed away.

He passed away July 22nd, 2018.

And.

I like you knew I had to do something.

So my wife went on the internet and he said, I've got to find something.

And she found Grief Share, and she goes, what do you think?

I go, I have no idea what that is.

She goes, some guy Steve's running it.

I go shoot him an email and see if we can join.

So, I mean, we were like two or three weeks after we lost Matt and we went

there and I've told this story before where Steve started the grief share.

By asking everybody if they had taken courses on grief.

And again, I just lost my son and I go, of course they

haven't taken a course on grief.

Everybody else there was saying, no, we haven't taken a course on grief.

Like who in their right mind would ever take a course on grief.

You'd be insane.

But we obviously know now that you will be needing a course on grief.

If you are a human live in this planet, cause either you're going to pay us a bit

of going to review or you're going to live and your loved ones are going to pass.

So what you're sort of saying is what Steve really began his course

on Grief Share dealing with that.

There is no course on grief and we really have to fill that void

because there's such a need for it.

And I'm fascinated by the way you did that because my journey is

a little different than yours.

And since they had you're a widower and I'm lost my son, my question for our

church to Steve is, do you have children?

Do you, do, do you have any sons or daughters?

How many children do you have?

I have four but i've remarried.

Okay.

And so I have four stepchildren and my children.

Okay.

And I have several grandchildren.

How was their journey been different than yours?

Have you incorporated their journey at all into your journey

as a widower dealing with grief?

Yes, yeah, they are somewhat, you know, it's interesting

you asked that because as I think about my father who was a widower.

I feel embarrassed that I did not do more for him,

But that's what I'm sort of getting at, right.

The different dynamics and different journeys.

And he lived a long time.

He lives 12 years later and I, I just was not understanding enough.

But my children are all sympathetic and they're all sensitive to it.

And they all liked her, you know, so it, my, my, my new wife is terrific.

I mean, andI just hope that if there's an afterlife that I'm going

to have to introduce the two of them,

Hopefully there'd be a nice dinner

Actually.

That's not a problem.

That's not a problem.

Interesting.

So we did mention your book before her.

Let's go ahead and tell everybody what the name of the book is, so they can find it.

Okay.

In case they are interested in it.

It's the widower's journey and I had a expert as, uh

may, among my various experts.

I had a lead expert in a Dr.

Debra Carr, who is the head of the Sociology Department at Boston University.

And she studied grief for 20 years.

So she was a real fine for me to have available as a resource.

Okay, great.

I just want to make sure everybody had the name of the book in case

they want to go find it and look for it, then they can find it

And it's available in all digital formats.

So you can get it on amazon.com.

I found it on Amazon this morning when I was looking.

Interesting enough, Marshall mentioned Grief Share, and that's

how I actually met you as well.

So I remember that night you came in.

Yeah, I that's when I was still writing the book and researching it,

and I've read so much about Grief Share that I wanted to go in and experience

it so I can speak to it intelligently.

And it was grea, it was great, it was helpful.

Good.

Obviously you didn't receive enough information as a new

widower and there were no books.

So you actually wrote the first book on it.

Why do widowers grieve differently?

Is it because men are brought up differently with their grief?

They're not supposed to show emotions.

What did you find in that area?

Um, men, oh boy, I can be somewhat critical of my fellow

man, uh, when it comes to this topic, because I think they don't really use

their brains fully and they react.

And I find that they're, like I mentioned before, they're

very dependent on the spouse.

If there is a spouse, except there is, uh, something that I did observe,

and that is people who have been in the military, tend to fare better in

dealing with grief because they have become they understand structure.

They amend work better with structure.

They understand that they have to get off the couch and get in the game to prevail.

Many of them have seen death in the past, which also helps

and they know how to live.

I mean and survive and they can iron their own clothes and they can

cook their own meals and they can bandage up a wound where other men.

Mommy, where are you?

I need this, I need that.

And it's really sad to observe this in people.

So there's some people who, like I said before, it can run a corporation,

but can't balance a checkbook.

There's also the emotional side.

They go home and they, they tell people I'm fine.

Leave me alone with my thoughts in the darkened home with the curtains drawn.

And they're really hoping that somebody knocks on the door or

calls them, but with a pandemic.

We have what's called compound isolation and it's even worse.

And that'd be the doctor, Kara and I, we actually did a podcast about

that ourselves a couple of months ago about compound isolation.

And it's, it's dangerous, but it's the, it's the world that we live in.

And for these, for the time being,

Steve Smelski:

Unfortunately, you're right.

Herb, what do you think is normal for a widower to feel right after a

loss because you know, men are different.

I hear what you're saying, but there's also, you know, so much of, you

know, I can say growing up in Buffalo as sports was always a big thing.

And, you know, I always remember, you know playing sports and getting hurt.

You know, you can have a huge gash in your leg, you know, put

dirt on it and keep on playing.

Like that's going to solve everything you know, like you just tough it out and, and

stay in the game, which when you're a kid and you're resilient, that's one thing.

But when you're an adult and you're lost somebody, you love it's something else.

So how does that factor into the grief of a Widower?

The the, what was, um,

So going through the grief classes, we've learned, there's certain

things that you think you're going crazy and you find out it's actually normal

to feel like that, or to think that way.

So I think what Marshall and I were trying to get at is.

What are some of the things that you realized that were normal, that at the

time you didn't think it was normal until you started doing your research

for your book and then you go, Oh, wow.

That, that, that really is perfectly normal,

Well crying and grieving and then I'm embarrassed

men have equals, you know.

And one gentleman just wrote on my Facebook page the other day, I'm a PhD.

I know better.

And I'm still reluctant to cry in front of other people.

You know, he's men, especially in the western hemisphere are

reluctant to show their emotions.

In Europe and Asi, it's not that big of a problem, but here, you know, we've become

stoic and we can't be seen hurting because then you're going to think less of me.

I mean, I'm sure that my boss questioned my ability to perform at

the bank with during the period that I was grieving, I had the personnel

director walked into my office, saw me sitting at my desk, crying, closed the

door, turned around and walked away.

Didn't say a word.

Didn't offer me anything.

Now, if I was a girl, he probably would have said, Oh honey, are you okay?

Do you want some tissue?

Here's a glass of water.

You know, it's there is a difference of our society on how we treat men.

And that's why men don't ask for help and they desperately need help,

but especially in Buffalo or in the Northern climates during the winter,

when the days are short and the nights are long and the weather is blistery,

they are isolated for weeks on end.

Yeah,

Which is very true.

You said something about the crying part.

I realized that Jordan only saw me cry once and it was when we lost a pet.

When he was, I don't know, 10, 10 and a half.

He died at 11 and a half.

I think I cried every day for two years, at least a couple of minutes every day.

And I'm like, wow, I never showed him that side of me.

So you're exactly right until I lost him.

I just, I wasn't su you're supposed to be tough.

You're supposed to be the, you're supposed to be able to show him the way.

And it's like, I'm not sure what I showed him.

Probably what every other guy does but...

Yeah.

And if you're candid, it will go on for years because grief

doesn't have a natural cycle.

You can have a good week, a good month.

And then suddenly you crash.

You have triggers that create a memory and then you go back and

you suffer through that trigger.

When I moved to where I'm living now, I lived very close to here

20 years ago with Michelle.

Well, I could tell you.

The restaurant on Lake Mary Boulevard, what she wore the last time we were there.

So every time I go by that restaurant, I can't help but think about it, you

know, you just, and that's been 13 years, so it's not going to be easy.

Everybody expects the men to get back in the game.

And that means ladies, that means I need to find a woma and

because I'm men are fixers, Steve and I are talking about this.

Men are fixers.

Now I'm going to tell you a story about my brother.

My brother was on a plane with his wife.

And his wife said to leaned over and said to him, the little boy on the seat

behind me is kicking the back of my seat.

Well, my brother being a man, which means he's a fixer turned around to

all the boy and said, knock it off.

Well, the wife leaned back over to him again and said, why'd you do that?

And she said, well, you told me he was kicking your seat.

Is that yes, he was.

I didn't want you to do anything.

I just want you to know it.

So men are fixers and when their wife is passed, they see

themselves and I need to be whole.

So frequently they'll marry the first girl that they, they date the first girl.

It doesn't matter anybody.

And their fatality rate of their marriages is over 50%.

But the other thing that impacts men is suicide because the four

to five times the suicide rate of women, men will commit suicide.

And because they're so they're sold, lost, they could have a great

career, but they're still lost.

What most men do is they just buried themselves back into their jobs.

Like I did it four in the morning.

It's perfect.

Obviously, as I mentioned before, my son had died by suicide and I'm very involved

with the latest research and statistics.

And I know you talked about the effect of the pandemic on grief while they're

doing a lot of statistical research now of the effect of the pandemic on suicide.

And it is not good because you know, with grief, you know, Steve, and I've

talked about this, like in the Jewish religion, you have a period called

Sitting Shivah where everybody comes over friends, family loved ones, and

just sort of takes over the house for the grieving family, bring in food.

And it's a very helpful way to begin the journey of grief.

You can't do that now with the pandemic, you can't have 15 people in your house

bringing in food and everybody hugging and kissing and giving you emotional support.

So you already start off at a deficit to begin with.

And then you talked about being home with the curtains closed, then

you're by yourself, that social isolation, that's social distancing.

It's what you have to do now with a pandemic and it's horrible for grief and

it's horrible for what effect it's having on people, including suicide, because

they are showing that statistically, the suicide numbers this year compared

to last year or the year before the year before are in fact higher.

And they're trying to obviously make the connection that is the pandemic causing

this and it would sure the heck seem like there's a causal relationship there.

And I think with men being the stoic and tough guys they were supposed

to be, we just compiled that.

No question.

It's yeah, no, no question.

Now there's some tools that are out there that are available for

such cases like take them a meal.

Are you familiar with that?

No,

No

It's a software program it's online . Ihttps://takethemameal.com and

you can schedule uh, so that you don't get all the meals at one day and then nothing

for the next month and then ladders them.

It spaces them out and you can, then you can send it out to a bunch of relatives.

And then those who are in a position to help can take a day and

say what they're going to bring.

So if there's some tools out there in zoom

Right

And it's a big, big, I can't imagine being in a pandemic

without zoom, it would be even more hurtful and more damaging.

It would absolutely.

And, you know, I think we need human contact in any way, shape

or form you can get it, you know, is this as good as a hug?

Of course not, but it's better than isolation.

That's where you got to look at it.

Yeah.

I I've thought about my daughter who is single and I've actually

congratulated her that she is trying very hard, but she's living alone.

So she has very little contact with other humans.

So I'm right now, practicing high touch.

You know, daily messages, phone calls, you know, anything gifts, you know,

anything to break up her day for

Right.

How old is your daughter?

Oh, she's in her forties and she works up at

the University of Connecticut.

Yeah, it's again, I think the effect of the pandemic on society in

general and people in grief in particular is going to be profound, that we may

not even know the true permanent effect of that for years, maybe even decades,

this is going to have a big, big effect.

You know, you think about this.

When was the last time people couldn't grieve normally a hundred years ago

during the 1918 flu pandemic, it's been a hundred years now in our lifetime.

And so this is unchartered territory, it really is.

It's tough.

It's tough.

It really, really is.

I know that you also have a podcast, right?

Like, as we're doing now, like what, what made you want to do a podcast?

I'm interested in that because obviously we're doing that to try to help as many

people as you can in the grief process.

But what was your, what was your thought process with your podcast?

The men are of different ages and over half of them are under 50.

So they have different preferences and communications.

So I wanted to be sure that I was reaching them.

So I created the podcast and, um, we have a one that's coming up.

I did one this afternoon earlier today, but I'm, I have one coming up with this

gentleman on Monday and he wrote the book, "My wife said, You May Want to Marry Me."

His name is Jason Rosenthal and his wife wrote an essay saying that appears in

New York Times and it's in 2017 and the header her was, you may want to marry my

husband and then she died 10 days later.

Well, he's done a Ted talk and, uh, he's speaking now he's a

lawyer by trade he's in Chicago.

And so, you know, we go out and we find people like him that we can interview

that we have something that we can learn from and share it with my audience.

And I hope that they, my audience listens to my podcast, like when

they're driving their cars or whatever.

And also the reach.

I mean, I I'm in 26 countries with my podcast, so my audience has expanded and

I also write a newspaper or a column.

In fact, here's one right here.

I write for 22,000 funeral directors.

And so my column appears there and it appears in India with some organization

over there and Open to Hope in California, The Grief Tool Box and New Hampshire.

I, you know, I get around using different channels.

That's fantastic.

How did you navigate the technology?

I'm very impressed that your, that you're able to do all that seriously.

I I'm a little bit younger than you and it sounds like you've really

taken this head on with enormous amount of energy and enthusiasm.

Seriously.

You know, Steve and I have been doing this podcast together, but Steve is far

more advanced technologically than I am.

I, my lawyer.

But from a technological standpoint, I kid my secretary,

she's been with me for 32 years.

I said, we practice Fred Flintstone law.

I know what I know.

And I know how to do that.

And I don't want to go too far field, but sounds like you've taken your

grief and really channeled that into learning new things and experiencing

new things for me to help others.

I have been blessed in my career.

Uh, I started off in banking, repossessing cars, and I ended up as a bank president.

And, uh, along that path, I was held many marketing and sales positions,

government relations positions, and the collective skills that were

needed for those positions is what I'm using to do what I do today.

Had I not had my career.

I could not even attempt what I do today.

So I'm very, very grateful for what my job taught me.

And it's the best thing that I've ever done is very, very gratifying.

There's not a day that goes by that somebody doesn't write a post or call

me, or send me a note saying how much it means to them, how much they are

dependent upon you know, my the various tools that I make available to them.

I have a professor at Brigham Young University who is

saying that he's married.

He's not a widower, but he became familiar with me.

I don't know how, but he did.

And he called me up one day he's like 40 years old and he's a professor there.

And he said, I teach computers.

And how would you like me to redesign your website for you?

And I'll use my students.

Sure, you know, have at it.

So I get a lot of help from the gentlemen who become familiar with my work.

And they like my journalists, the guys who write the columns for me, I

couldn't fill all those column inches, but they do it and they do a great

job and they come up with topics that I never even would have thought of.

So it's, um, it's a labor of love.

I sometimes think that my by void of not helping my father more I'm giving

forwar and I'm actually concerned that my health is going to come into play.

And so I'm looking for a place that I can partner with or make some

kind of special arrangements with.

But because I know that the men are dependent upon me.

And frankly, for widowers, my Facebook page is the best thing on the planet.

I mean, there is nothing else out there for widowers.

You may find widowers and widows, but nothing just for widowers.

So we, um, once people become familiar with us, they become fans.

That's fantastic.

I mean, seriously, that, that speaks so well of you, that

you were willing to help.

So many people, you had the will to do it.

And the ability to succeed at that goal is fantastic.

I mean, that's how, let me ask you this.

How does it help you when you have a tough day when you're

getting hit by that wave of grief?

When people are reaching out to you for help, how do you deal with it when it's

your day to look for help when you're getting hit by that wave of grief?

You know, I've, I've talked to Steve about this many times.

I've always said that over time, Matt only been gone for two years now, the

waves of grief become less frequent over time, but the wave height never changes.

It's like when you get hit, it's like, you just lost your loved one.

And so what I'm asking you is you've got so many people looking

to you for help when they're dealing with their wave of grief.

What do you do when you get hit with your wave of grief?

Do you reach out to them or do you do other things?

That's a good question.

When I post things, I do it to satisfy some of my own issues,

but I put it up anonymously.

You know, if they know what's coming from me, but they don't know it's my issue.

And then they will answer and frankly, the men are so active on this page.

Hmm,

That there's always something interesting that's going on.

They talk about their girlfriends.

They talk about they got engaged or like on Fridays we only allow good

news, no tear jerking post , no crying.

No, no sorrow, no grief; only good news on Fridays.

And they will, they save it up during the week so they can post it on Fridays.

And it could be that they did something with the grandchildren

last labor day weekend, or they been able to overcome something that has

been a hurdle for them, grief wise or health wise or whatever it is.

So I'm nurtured.

It's therapeutic for me.

There's no doubt about it.

Writing my book was very therapeutic for me.

I almost quit I should tell you writing the book.

And the book still earns five stars on Amazon.

It still gets very good reviews, but I almost quit about 12 times

and I'm a Catholic and I was in church and I said a silent prayer.

I was at my wit's end and this is like eight years in and trying to

lead volunteers for eight years, you know, the men who, Oh, it's

Herb again, he's got more questions.

The experts keeping them engaged and as he ever going to finish this book, I actually

wrote 102,000 words, but I only published 59 because we wanted the book to be really

a lot of red meat and I was in church and I said, God, if you really want this book,

you're going to have to send me a sign.

Well, the pastor gets up and does a homily that was custom made for my ears.

And I thought to myself, okay, I'll give you the book.

And six months later it was released.

I told the pastor that he saved that book.

Well, again, I should tell you, my current wife saved the book because I could not

have written it without her support.

And the number of hours that I put into the book.

I mean, you're talking thousands of hours and I got binders and binders

of research and questionnaires and et cetera, and tabulations.

My wife is a very giving person, my current wife, and she enabled me to

write the book and she's my biggest fan.

Right, that's wonderful.

I get that.

I'm I'm just so impressed cause I I'm looking what you've done.

You've written a book.

You've set up a support network.

You've got a podcast.

I mean, you're like a one man band.

I mean seriously, those guys with the, all the instruments

and doing everything at once.

I think it just is a good roadmap.

Because anybody that loses a loved one, you want to make your life a tribute to

theirs by making the world a better place, the way they did when they were here.

And they're not, they're not here anymore, so we have to do it.

And it sure the heck sounds like you're really doing a very good job with that.

I'm a man of faith.

And I've been blessed more than I deserve, as Ithey say, and I need to, I owe others.

So I'm just trying to fulfill that obligation.

Well, I think you're succeeding.

And again, I can't tell you how much I'm impressed by what you're doing.

And I've always said, the people from Buffalo are the best in the world and

you, you're proving this, you're proving that with what you're doing seriously.

You know, what's funny about the city of Buffalo is you

go to a Tops Market or a w or a Wegmans, and you will talk to people

who pass you with a shopping cart.

You'll talk to them.

Where can I find this?

Or what?

But in the South, if you're in a Publix or Winn Dixie, You don't dare talk to

anybody because it's an affront to them.

It's interesting that you mentioned that my, my father grew

up in Buffalo, but my mother grew up on the lower East side of Manhattan.

If you know, cats is delicate tests and the famous delicate in New York,

she grew up right across the street and First Street and Avenue way.

My grandfather was a Russian immigrant.

It was a tailor and he went bankrupt during the depression.

He had eight children and he had to work as a New York City sanitation

man, a garbage man made $36 a week.

You need to feed 10 people at $36 a week.

So my mother moved to Buffalo after my father finished Podiatry school.

My father was, it was a foot surgeon and she moved to Buffalo and she

didn't even know where Buffalo was.

She , she knew it was someplace West of the Hudson, but she

didn't know where it was.

And she told me so many times that her best friends in her entire

life were people from Buffalo.

They meant more to her than any of the friends she made it her entire life.

So she was New Yorker, but she became a Buffalonian and I've had

so many people telling me that.

And it's just a mentality, you know, I, again, I love the tee

shirts in Buffalo where it says Buffalo, the city of no illusions.

That sort of stuff, that's sort of, it is what it is.

And it's Buffalo and it's family and it's football and it's chicken wings.

And it's a sense of community that I think we all need now.

So obviously all the good things you've done.

I think your Buffalo background have led you to where you are.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Well, again, I want to thank you so much for talking today and

I want to thank you so much for doing what you're doing and giving so much

of yourself to those who need help.

And I think, just think being a guest on our podcast today will help others

that you may not available to reach through your wonderful activities.

And I think this will be a wonderful thing to try to help others.

And again, I just cannot tell you how impressed I am by everything you've

done and everything that you are doing and just keep up the good work.

It's wonderful.

Well, thank you.

If I can just say for gentlemen who are listening to this podcast to get

on the page of our Facebook page, go to Widowers Support Network Members Only.

Now we have two pages.

We have Widowers Support Network for the general public, and then we have Widowers

Support Network Members Only just for men.

So i mean and it's for a free service.

So we invite them to a check us out

Great, great.

I have all listeners will we'll do that.

And again, I want to thank you so much for being a guest today was

a very interesting conversation.

I always love talking to anybody from Buffalo and seriously I do.

I just, I love it.

And off camera off mic, we were talking about our favorite

places to eat in Buffalo, and I think we better leave it there.

Cause if we started talking about Buffalo food.

We'll be doing this podcast for the next six hours.

So we'll leave that off audio and off video.

But again, thank you so much for being here.

And I know you really helped a lot of our listeners today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you.

We wanted to thank everyone for joining us today

with our conversation with Mr.

Herb Knoll.

Herb's got an awful lot going on.

He's created a network for widowers support.

He's got a podcast going and he's written a book and we'd like to thank

him for it coming on and sharing today.

We also would have to let you know if you're interested in getting a copy

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

Helping Men Rebuild After Their Loss.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

You may contact Herb directly at his email address at

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

herb@widowerssupportnetwork.com and go ahead and tell them you're interested

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

in getting a copy of his book.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

And if you mentioned the discount code, hope you'll receive a 15% discount price

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

off the purchase price of his book.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

So once again, that's herb@widowerssupportnetwork.com

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

and just mentioned to Herb you're interested in a copy of his book.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

Go ahead and mentioned the discount code hope and you'll receive

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

15% off the purchase price.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

Thank you for joining us today and hope you have a great day.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

Thank you.

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

Thank you for joining us on Hope Thru Grief with your cohost

of Herb's book, The Widower's Journey:

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski.

We hope our episode today was helpful and informative.

Since we are not medical or mental health professionals.

We cannot and will not provide any medical, psychological,

or mental health advice.

Therefore, if you or anyone, you know, requires medical or mental health

treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately.