Nonprofit 'Widow's Journey' offers support for Black women

Medina Fonville, of Brentwood, had turned 50 in 2021 when her husband died from COVID-19. The hospice-trained nurse attended her workplace’s bereavement program and sought individual counseling to navigate her grief. Both provided comfort, she said, but neither offered the cultural connection she had been searching for...

Gina Lissone had a similar experience after her husband died of cancer in May 2023. A friend recommended hospital-based bereavement programs and a support group for widows younger than 65. There, Lissone, then 53, met Fonville — the only other Black woman in the room. “My friend said you need to find help, but I didn’t know many people my age who were widows that I could talk to who shared my cultural background,” Lissone said.

The two women began searching for a “culturally affirming” program that recognized how race, family traditions, spirituality and experience can shape grief. Seeing a need, Lissone and Fonville decided to take matters into their own hands.

“We [women of color]  usually believe God will take care of it, and we’re strong enough,” Lissone said. "But widows need to know that they don’t have to go through things by themselves.”

In late 2024, Lissone and Fonville, both certified grief educators, founded the nonprofit Widow’s Journey Reach One Teach One, for widows of color ages 20 to 65. Its free, eight-week “Strength in Sorrow" program aims to provide “support and empowerment” to women in Nassau and Suffolk counties who are grieving the loss of a spouse.

“We wanted to address the gap in our culture that other groups weren’t addressing,” said Lissone, a mother of three and a nurse practitioner, now 56. “Our program’s participants share similar cultural backgrounds and lived experiences.”

Culture shapes grief

Tashel C. Bordere, principal investigator at the Center for Family Policy and Research at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who researches the grief experience of Black youth and families, said, “Experiences with grief and loss are shaped by cultural traditions and lived experiences.”

“Time for grief and accessible grief support are luxuries not afforded to Black families,” Bordere said in an email. “Grief support for Black women is limited, and when they do express their feelings, they are often faced with suffocated grief or punishment for normal grief expressions. So, as a protection, Black women often push through difficult losses and get support within their families and communities.”

After Linda Thomas-Batson’s husband died in 2014, the social worker and psychotherapist, then 57, prioritized seeking bereavement counseling for her two children, then ages 9 and 11. “I focused on my kids to make sure that they would be OK and so they could maintain normalcy,” recalled Thomas-Batson, now 69 and semi-retired.

But a couple of years later, the Freeport resident noticed she was growing irritable, and “little things” bothered her. She leaned on the support of her friends and attended only one session of her church’s bereavement group “because it was for the loss of a parent, sibling, child and spouse, and I wanted one that focused on widows,” she said.

Thomas-Batson’s curiosity was piqued when she saw a Facebook post from Widow’s Journey and decided to attend a March meeting at the Long Island Welcome Center in Dix Hills.

“There was discussion about the perception that we [women of color]  always have to have it all together; it’s an expectation from employers, family and friends,” said Thomas-Batson, who felt welcomed and understood by the group at the first meeting. “If you’re not curled up in a ball, [they think] you must be OK.”

For the most part, the widows range in age from 50 to the mid-60s — years when many are juggling careers while caring for their children and aging parents.

“We are the sandwich generation,” Fonville said. “We are still working, raising children or getting our kids out of high school and into college and caring for our older parents. … People don’t know what to say to us, but they know what to say to the little old lady'' who's a widow.

Reach One Teach One

Widow’s Journey Reach One Teach One offers peer-led sessions, guided discussions, workshops and creative therapies. One element of the program draws on the biblical story of the 12 stones that Joshua instructed the Israelites to place in the Promised Land after crossing the Jordan River, Lissone said.

In the program, the stones represent the common challenges many widows face, such as loneliness, fear and shifting identity, she said.

“The stones [which each participant receives in a drawstring bag] represent emotional burdens we carry through the grief journey,” said Lissone, “and at the end of the program, they represent a memorial of what we walked through.”

At the program’s conclusion, participants can “Teach One” or opt to complete facilitator training to help lead future sessions, she said.

'Like a sisterhood'

Nyesha Davis-Stancil was raised to believe that tears are a “sign of weakness.”

But when the respiratory therapist’s husband died earlier this year, the Port Jefferson Station mother, 55, said she knew she needed help to work through her feelings of anger and sadness.

At her husband’s funeral, a former colleague told her about Widow’s Journey Reach One Teach One, Davis-Stancil said. She decided to attend the group’s program in March.

“The people didn’t know me when I walked into the meeting, but they embraced me. I felt like it was someplace familiar,” she said. “I said I had to be strong for myself and my son. But they told me it’s OK to cry and that if you cry, it doesn’t mean you’re weak.”

She said the program helped her to “open up when I was trying not to have emotions.”

“It’s like a sisterhood,” she said. “If I have a question about the lawn or need to get something fixed in the house, someone in the group can make a suggestion. These ladies are like family.”

While Davis-Stancil said the widows in her bereavement group “understood” she wasn’t interested in dating, well-meaning friends “outside” of her cultural community tried to introduce her to a potential new partner.

“One week after my husband passed, a friend asked if I would like to go to dinner with her and her partner and another guy. The friend said it wasn’t a setup, but it sounded like they were trying to set me up with someone,” she recalled. “I hadn’t dated anyone but my husband in 25 years. I said I wasn’t interested.”

A sense of connection

For Karlene Welsh, a series of devastating losses left her overwhelmed and grief-stricken. During the span of three years, the clinical care manager, now 66, experienced the deaths of six loved ones: her estranged husband, both stepparents, her brother and two close friends.

Welsh, of Hewlett, first attended her church’s bereavement support group. While the program was a positive first step, she realized she wanted a support group for widowed spouses as she coped with a complex mix of emotions.

She learned about Widow's Journey from Lissone, a colleague, and attended the program in March at the Long Island Welcome Center in Dix Hills.

“Immediately, there was bonding and warmth,” she said. “There was an understanding of my identity [as a woman of color]. I didn’t have to explain myself or my grief. I was free to express myself.”

That sense of connection is what Lissone and Fonville say they had been unable to find after their own husbands died — and what they hoped to create for other widows.

“The most rewarding actions to see … are the participants blossoming,” Fonville said. “When each one comes in, they may have their own preconceived ideas of what to expect, but I believe they find so much more, not just about their grief but about themselves as women. To see the bond and the connections as the weeks go forward is a great reward.”