ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Losing your spouse is a difficult and life-altering event. According to the Modern Widows Club, the United States has more than 12 million widows, with 36,500 in Orange County.

One Orlando widow is navigating her new role as the sole provider for her family, and she turned to a Winter Park nonprofit looking to help women through the hurdles that comes with that situation.

Bethany Mikesell has been teaching aqua fitness at the Peggy & Philip B. Crosby Center for Health & Wellbeing for 20 years. She said her support group of women there have helped her get through one of the most difficult times in her life. 

“That’s one of the things that helped me get through everything that I have gone through is that I have their support,” Mikesell said.

Three years ago, Mikesell was widowed, leaving the mother of six to find ways to make ends meet on her own.

“I have six jobs: Four physical therapy jobs and two fitness jobs that I work currently,” Mikesell said.

In 2019, the community rallied around her family as her husband Jon battled terminal cancer that had spread to his spine and organs. 

Just a few years later, Mikesell is alone, using her time between jobs to take a moment to get through her tasks.

She reviews her finances, which is one of the hardest things she had to navigate.

“When my husband immediately passed, I don’t think I was thinking so much about my finances at that point. I was just trying to get through a day,” Mikesell said.

Initially, she tried to go at it by herself.

“There are two sides to every budget. There’s the income and there’s the expenses, and you can only cut expenses so much before you need to increase the income side and that is what I had to do,” Mikesell said. “I had to go and get multiple jobs, where one job was not enough to foot the bill.”

Eventually she sought out help. One organization she connected with is the Modern Widows Club, a nonprofit in Winter Park that hosted a Widows' Health & WellBeing Day, offering advice to women like Mikesell. The group also touches on financial tips, offered by a financial planner who knows firsthand what it’s like to face life alone.

“For myself and for other widows, the future looks different, and we need to come together to empower each other. There’s just too many ways to try and help each other be resilient," said Certified Financial Planner Cindy Price.

As for Mikesell, her view of the years ahead still looks hazy.

“I wish I felt confident in my finances moving into the future,” Mikesell said. “I have learned lots of kind of tips and tricks to kind of help me get by.”

She knows she will make it through leaning on her community and hopes other widows do the same.

“Don’t try to do everything yourself. Ask for help when you need it,” Mikesell said.

For more information about how to connect to resources available to widows, click here.