When Gael Garbarino Cullen’s husband failed to call home from a business trip in October 1995, she became increasingly concerned. When he also failed to pick up
Gael Garbarino Cullen, a former Milwaukee radio and television reporter, reflects on the loss of her husband and the lessons learned through grief in her memoir, Owning Grief. (Photo courtesy of owninggrief.com)
their daughter from a babysitter, her instincts as a former news reporter took over.
“As the time wore on, I got increasingly concerned but didn’t want to say anything to my kids. So, I kind of waited until I was able to get them off to bed around 7:30 that evening,” said Garbarino Cullen, a former radio and television news reporter at WTMJ in Milwaukee.
“I started to put my reporter hat back on and make a lot of phone calls to find out what was going on. And the long and short of it was after a number of phone calls, I finally got the hotel manager in Cincinnati to admit to me that Steve had been found dead in his hotel room.”
Her husband, Steve Cullen, was 40. Suddenly, she faced raising their four young children without him.
“The questions were endless,” she said. “Four very young kids to raise completely on my own, figuring out where they are going to go to school next. What kinds of sports activities are they going to take part in? Do we go into scouting at all, or Irish dance, or any number of extracurricular activities? What about their Catholic upbringing? How do I pursue that and continue to pursue that when I’m doing this all by myself?”
Thirty years later, Garbarino Cullen has reflected on that loss and the lessons she has learned through grief. Now a public speaker and author of “Owning Grief: Widowed Young, How I Discovered Gifts in Loss,” she shares how faith, resilience and the experience of loss have shaped her life.
Published in 2022, the book chronicles Garbarino Cullen’s experience of suddenly becoming a single mother and the emotional challenges that followed, including loneliness, fear, anxiety and depression.
The memoir also explores accepting help, navigating family milestones and discovering what she describes as unexpected gifts in the grieving process. It includes a reader’s guide designed to encourage group discussions about loss.
Garbarino Cullen spent nearly 30 years living with and reflecting on her grief before writing the book. She now shares her experiences through presentations at churches, bookstores and community gatherings, encouraging others to recognize that grief can accompany many kinds of loss, not only death.
“It has to resonate with so many people because we all go through grief,” she said.
“It’s definitely a journey. The beauty of grief is that it reflects the person that you loved so much. The fact that we have grief and that we go through the grief process is actually a tribute to the relationship that you have lost.”
Garbarino Cullen acknowledges that some readers might question the idea that anything positive could emerge from such a devastating experience.
(Photo courtesy of owninggrief.com)
“I initially thought people are going to think, ‘You’re crazy to say that somehow losing your husband, the father of your four children, at a very young age was in any way a positive experience.’ While I would give anything to have Steve walk through the door right now, many years later, or would have any number of those
30 years, it wasn’t going to happen,” she said.
“To be able to reflect on the experience and realize that there are gifts in the grieving process that you learn can help you face other hardships and difficulties that we all face going forward in our lives, that was the point of ‘Owning Grief.’”
She has also learned that grief does not follow a predictable path or timeline.
“There still are moments, believe it or not, 30 years later where some aspect of grief will hit. Walking my four daughters down the aisle by myself, many years after Steve had died, being able to find the strength and the resilience to get through those moments, and to also appreciate those moments, beautiful family moments,” she said.
“Even though I was doing them physically by myself, I still felt Steve’s presence was there, God’s presence was there, and so I was able to enjoy those moments even though there was a little bit of bittersweet involved.”
Throughout her experience, Garbarino Cullen said, faith has helped her recognize the possibility of growth even amid profound loss.
“I think finding the grace and the ability to call on a greater authority, a greater power to help us through those things and help us come out perhaps even better in a sense than when we first entered into that experience,” she said.
“It’s a process that you have to go through to get to a place where you are willing and able to accept that there are positive things that you’ve experienced as a result of this loss. You maybe appreciate even more what you may have had when that person was alive, and you allow that to influence your decisions in life going forward.”
“Owning Grief” is available in paperback, audiobook and e-book formats. More information about the book and Garbarino Cullen’s speaking engagements is available at owninggrief.com.
