Sheryl Sandberg says adult children can help a widowed parent with a simple message

Sheryl Sandberg said one of the most meaningful moments since she was widowed came when her son encouraged her to recreate a photo with her second husband.

On Thursday’s episode of the “All There Is with Anderson Cooper” podcast, the former Meta COO spoke about losing her late husband, Dave Goldberg, in 2015. Their children were 10 and 7 at the time.

Sandberg later found love again with Tom Bernthal, whom she married in 2022.

During the podcast, Sandberg recounted how, on a recent trip to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, she found herself grieving Goldberg because it was where they had taken one of her favorite honeymoon photos.

Her 21-year-old son, who had once told her not to remarry, urged her to take the same picture with Bernthal, saying Goldberg would have been happy she’d found him.

“That was one of the most important moments of my life, and it just happened. And I want more people who have lost spouses to have that with their children,” Sandberg told host Anderson Cooper.

Sandberg said she often tells widows and widowers two things: that things will get better, and that they can find love again if they want to.

“Every person kind of gasps, pauses, and then there’s relief, and they say, ‘Thank you for saying that. No one else has.’ And then almost as frequently they say, ‘But I don’t want to upset my children,'” Sandberg said. “Not little kids. I’m talking about grown children.”

She acknowledged that it can be painful for adult children to watch a parent date after losing a spouse.

But, she said, parents spend most of their lives caring for their kids, and adult children “have a chance to do something for a parent” by supporting a surviving parent’s search for companionship.

“I don’t fault the adult children who aren’t doing this. I think they just haven’t thought about it,” Sandberg said, adding that they may not realize how lonely a widowed parent can feel once their children return to their own partners and families.

“The question is giving them permission to move on. Permission, and even encouragement,” she said.