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Gay Widowers
A recent gay widower may find that once the shock and initial confusion of losing his partner is overcome, there are still many hard, lonely, and overwhelming stages of grief to be worked through. Often, the bereaved feels isolated, and looking around for comfort, realizes that he doesn’t have many resources to turn to, but Gay Life After the Death of a Partner is a start. By offering first-person accounts of becoming a widower, this book, the first of its kind, allows others who are about to lose or already have lost a partner to find support, validation, recognition, and fellowship. Its editor and contributors hope that by sharing their stories of loss, pain, and bewilderment, they will help others in mourning as well as make one more step forward in their own healing.Men of different ages and ethnic, religious, geographic, and economic backgrounds join together in Gay Widowers to remind other gay widowers that they are not alone and that their feelings of pain, anger, and emptiness are normal and legitimate. Not solely a book about life after the loss of a partner to AIDS, this book is about rebuilding life as a bereaved gay man, regardless of the cause of your partner’s death. You will find encouragement for moving your life forward, without shutting your memories away, as you read By bringing forth these stories, Gay Widowers offers bereaved gay men, psychologists, counselors, and social workers--in a society where the mourning process is generally a heterosexual, social construct--a clinical overview of the psychodynamic issues relevant, and perhaps unique, to the mourning process of gay men.
- GenresNonfictionLGBT
184 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 1997
1 person is currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Michael Shernoff
13 booksHe attended New York City schools. He graduated from the Harpur College at Binghamton University and in 1977 received a master’s degree in social work from the School of Social Welfare of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
As a licensed clinical social worker, he offered outpatient mental health services in Chelsea in New York City. He also taught at Hunter College from 1991 to 2001, and from 2002 until his retirement in 2006 he served on the faculty of the Columbia University School of Social Work. From 1997 until 2004 he was the online mental health expert for the HIV/AIDS website TheBody.com.
He was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1982, but lived free of AIDS symptoms. At the time of his death from pancreatic cancer in Manhattan in June 2008, his brother Jeffrey Shernoff told The New York Times that he found it ironic that after years of living with HIV infection, "He died of pancreatic cancer, which may not even be related."
As a licensed clinical social worker, he offered outpatient mental health services in Chelsea in New York City. He also taught at Hunter College from 1991 to 2001, and from 2002 until his retirement in 2006 he served on the faculty of the Columbia University School of Social Work. From 1997 until 2004 he was the online mental health expert for the HIV/AIDS website TheBody.com.
He was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1982, but lived free of AIDS symptoms. At the time of his death from pancreatic cancer in Manhattan in June 2008, his brother Jeffrey Shernoff told The New York Times that he found it ironic that after years of living with HIV infection, "He died of pancreatic cancer, which may not even be related."
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June 20, 2015
This is an excellent book tackling so many different aspects of grieving. It is also a beautiful book, resplendent with love and overflowing with wisdom.
I wanted to read this book because it has an essay by Winston Wilde who was Paul Monette's husband. I wanted to see how he dealt with Paul Monette's passing and what it meant to mourn the loss of someone who was so highly regarded and to mourn them at a time of devastation and fear. I thought his essay was realistic, painful but very honest.
I also wanted to read this because I don't think the Western world deals with grief and mourning adequately. When my mother died my employers at the time (Mayor's Office London in 2013) were utterly useless in their response to my grief. I think they thought I should throw my mother in the ground, dust myself off and get on with life. Needless to say I eventually left the organisation but not before telling them exactly what I thought about their callous disregard of human grief.
I am not the only one to have experienced inadequate responses to grief. I think we fail as a society when it comes to grief and mourning. We fail to recognise it and our responses to grief are inadequate.
This book speaks about the specific experiences of gay widowers. Gay men who have lost their partners. It is a brilliant book written in 1997 at the time of the AIDS crisis. Many of the writers in the book lost their partners to AIDS but some losses were due to other causes. The premise behind the book is to show that gay men may not have the social,family and community support that they need in order to mourn and grieve and reshape their lives and that professionals will need to be aware of these needs and the specific challenges faced by gay widowers.
The stories in the book were incredibly powerful and this is a brilliant follow up to John Prescot's Personal Dispatches which is a book of reflections written about living during the Aids crisis. The two books are not in any way connected but reading them together made for a deeply profound reading and learning experience. I am a priest and I read this with a specific focus on gay men, but I also thought about pastoral care and support, and the need to recognise that grief manifests itself in all kinds of silent ways. I see this book as a way of educating myself about the specific needs of gay men who are grieving, but also educating myself about the needs of other people who grieve. It also helped me think about my own grief.
It is an amazing book, a beautiful book of love. I found much love and beauty in the essays as well. The stories were comforting and inspirational because they are stories of love and hope and life.
I also found wisdom in these essays. As the men relate their stories of finding life again, it was surprising how much of the wisdom there was applicable to anyone in mourning. Each writer speaks about the way in which they have grieved or are grieving and the way in which they remember their partners and respond to the loss. They speak about their pain but they also reflect hope and they speak about the way in which they have found new shapes of living or as one writer describes it a 'renaming'.
The relationships are all very different but all of them show love and commitment. I was especially touched by the interview with Don Bachardy as he reflects on the loss of his partner the writer Christopher Isherwood who died in his eighties. They loved each other for 33 years and had a 30 year gap between them and so they both recognised the likelihood of Christopher dying before Don. Christopher kept a diary of his life with Don and asked Don to do the same over the years they were together. These diaries helped Don with his grieving. Of course not everyone can prepare for dying in this way and many of the men in this book had to face the untimeliness of their partner's loss and the fact that they were grieving in their thirties and forties, and having to cope with single life at a time they should have been settled in married/partnered life.
I particularly enjoyed the interview with Don Bachardy because his relationship with Christopher Isherwood goes to show that love can be made manifest across the years, even across the generation gap, demolishing all kinds of societal expectations.
At the end of the book the last section explores the kinds of responses and support that social workers, mental health workers and other professionals Should have in place for gay widowers and the kinds of issues that may complicate this support.
This book made me think more widely about the impact of the Aids pandemic, especially the impact in the global South where it is women who bear the brunt of the pandemic. This is in contrast to the global North where gay men bear the brunt of the pandemic. I contrasted these stories of love and commitment between men, to the stories I have heard about women in the global south who have been abandoned by their husbands in hospitals, or mistreated by relatives when they survive their husband's passing from Aids.
I contrasted these stories of love between men with the death of my cousin whose husband neglected her when she was dying from Aids, and I remembered the wonderful gay men who fought for her to survive and tried their best to save her. In reading these stories and remembering my cousin, the hypocrisy of cultures that seek to lessen and denigrate gay relationships is exposed. I shall be thinking of what I have read and allow it to soak my heart.
These passionate stories also give hope and speak of courage.
I was inspired by these men who have written this book, sharing their pain and loss, and sharing their lives. In so doing they have also shared something deep from themselves and reading their stories have also now touched my life.
It is a brilliant book, an excellent testimony of love and a wonderful reading experience.
I wanted to read this book because it has an essay by Winston Wilde who was Paul Monette's husband. I wanted to see how he dealt with Paul Monette's passing and what it meant to mourn the loss of someone who was so highly regarded and to mourn them at a time of devastation and fear. I thought his essay was realistic, painful but very honest.
I also wanted to read this because I don't think the Western world deals with grief and mourning adequately. When my mother died my employers at the time (Mayor's Office London in 2013) were utterly useless in their response to my grief. I think they thought I should throw my mother in the ground, dust myself off and get on with life. Needless to say I eventually left the organisation but not before telling them exactly what I thought about their callous disregard of human grief.
I am not the only one to have experienced inadequate responses to grief. I think we fail as a society when it comes to grief and mourning. We fail to recognise it and our responses to grief are inadequate.
This book speaks about the specific experiences of gay widowers. Gay men who have lost their partners. It is a brilliant book written in 1997 at the time of the AIDS crisis. Many of the writers in the book lost their partners to AIDS but some losses were due to other causes. The premise behind the book is to show that gay men may not have the social,family and community support that they need in order to mourn and grieve and reshape their lives and that professionals will need to be aware of these needs and the specific challenges faced by gay widowers.
The stories in the book were incredibly powerful and this is a brilliant follow up to John Prescot's Personal Dispatches which is a book of reflections written about living during the Aids crisis. The two books are not in any way connected but reading them together made for a deeply profound reading and learning experience. I am a priest and I read this with a specific focus on gay men, but I also thought about pastoral care and support, and the need to recognise that grief manifests itself in all kinds of silent ways. I see this book as a way of educating myself about the specific needs of gay men who are grieving, but also educating myself about the needs of other people who grieve. It also helped me think about my own grief.
It is an amazing book, a beautiful book of love. I found much love and beauty in the essays as well. The stories were comforting and inspirational because they are stories of love and hope and life.
I also found wisdom in these essays. As the men relate their stories of finding life again, it was surprising how much of the wisdom there was applicable to anyone in mourning. Each writer speaks about the way in which they have grieved or are grieving and the way in which they remember their partners and respond to the loss. They speak about their pain but they also reflect hope and they speak about the way in which they have found new shapes of living or as one writer describes it a 'renaming'.
The relationships are all very different but all of them show love and commitment. I was especially touched by the interview with Don Bachardy as he reflects on the loss of his partner the writer Christopher Isherwood who died in his eighties. They loved each other for 33 years and had a 30 year gap between them and so they both recognised the likelihood of Christopher dying before Don. Christopher kept a diary of his life with Don and asked Don to do the same over the years they were together. These diaries helped Don with his grieving. Of course not everyone can prepare for dying in this way and many of the men in this book had to face the untimeliness of their partner's loss and the fact that they were grieving in their thirties and forties, and having to cope with single life at a time they should have been settled in married/partnered life.
I particularly enjoyed the interview with Don Bachardy because his relationship with Christopher Isherwood goes to show that love can be made manifest across the years, even across the generation gap, demolishing all kinds of societal expectations.
At the end of the book the last section explores the kinds of responses and support that social workers, mental health workers and other professionals Should have in place for gay widowers and the kinds of issues that may complicate this support.
This book made me think more widely about the impact of the Aids pandemic, especially the impact in the global South where it is women who bear the brunt of the pandemic. This is in contrast to the global North where gay men bear the brunt of the pandemic. I contrasted these stories of love and commitment between men, to the stories I have heard about women in the global south who have been abandoned by their husbands in hospitals, or mistreated by relatives when they survive their husband's passing from Aids.
I contrasted these stories of love between men with the death of my cousin whose husband neglected her when she was dying from Aids, and I remembered the wonderful gay men who fought for her to survive and tried their best to save her. In reading these stories and remembering my cousin, the hypocrisy of cultures that seek to lessen and denigrate gay relationships is exposed. I shall be thinking of what I have read and allow it to soak my heart.
These passionate stories also give hope and speak of courage.
I was inspired by these men who have written this book, sharing their pain and loss, and sharing their lives. In so doing they have also shared something deep from themselves and reading their stories have also now touched my life.
It is a brilliant book, an excellent testimony of love and a wonderful reading experience.
Displaying 1 of 1 review