For these grieving partners, Camp Widow offered a way forward

When Jessica Waite's husband, Sean, suddenly passed away from a heart attack in 2015 while on a business trip to Houston, she was left in shock. 

But the Calgary writer's life would take another heartbreaking turn. 

The day after his funeral, she received a box of his personal belongings mailed from Houston, which led her to discover many devastating secrets he had kept from her — infidelity, drug abuse, compulsive spending, hidden debt and an addiction to pornography.

"It was just one shocking revelation after another. I felt extremely betrayed," Waite told The Current's host Matt Galloway. 

"I went from having the rug yanked out with grief to then having it yanked out with an idea that my whole had been a lie, and like 'Was anything that this person ever said true?'" 

Waites writes about this experience in her new memoir The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards. 

She described attending Camp Widow in Toronto as a transformative experience. 

The annual event, which brings together people who have lost their partners, is billed as a weekend of emotional healing through activities like workshops, a banquet and dance. The organizers say it is designed to help participants connect with others who have similarities in their losses, whether in terms of timing, cause of death, or geographic location.

"[Grief] is so isolating and it feels so unique, partly because it is unique. I'm the only me, that lost the only Sean, that there ever will be in this whole world," said Waite. 

"You know in your head that it's universal, but when you're amongst people — every single one of them who has gone through some version of this — you know it in a different way. And so I felt so much less alone." 

She also learned to accept the loss of a flawed partner. 

"One of my biggest discoveries was … there's things that everyone doesn't miss about the person that they love, so just allowing [for] human imperfection — the ways that we all try and fail in life — was a huge part of Camp Widow for me," she said. 

In November, about 250 people from across North America came together for the largest Camp Widow event so far, held at a hotel in Toronto. 

Jodi Skeates, the founding director of Soaring Spirits Canada, the Fredericton-based charity that organizes Camp Widow, says the organization aims to inspire hope. She says individuals who have "lost [their] person" often experience deep, overwhelming hopelessness as they struggle to figure out what their next step will be.