This is the 10th year anniversary of my wife Hazel’s death and our 11th Mother’s Day without her.
Back in 2017 I wrote a piece for Music Football Fatherhood on Why I Embrace Being A Widower & Single Father. Then in 2019 I wrote a piece about Mother’s Day. I’ve also spoken on panels, podcasts and even written a chapter in a book called DAD: Untold stories of Fatherhood, Love, Mental Health and Masculinity, about my experiences of raising 2 young boys as a solo parent.
Even though I had never planned to talk about my experiences, it feels fitting to be writing this piece to mark the significance of this year. Additionally, it also feels appropriate to look back and acknowledge the journey that I’ve had over this period of time.
The Last 10 Years In A Nutshell
At the start of these past 10 years, I would have never imagined me talking freely about my experiences of being, widowed, grief or solo parenthood. It just kind of happened. Intuitively it felt like the right thing to do. Even though I come from a very analytical background, both professionally and personally. I’m unable to explain why this is the case. But something inside me felt at ease with being able to share my story.
On a few occasions, I’ve been invited to speak on a panel, podcast or documentary. Previously, I would have taken some time to think it through before making a decision. But before I’d had any real time to think about it, I’d agreed to do them.
A few years ago I’d been invited to speak on a panel, about my experiences of parenting. I had no intention of sharing how I’d come to be a solo parent. But on the last question to panel it all came out. There was a long silence as the audience began to digest what I had told them. At the end of the event, a number of people came up to me to offer their condolences and to thank me for sharing my storing. I didn’t think too much of it until later. A woman came up to me and after some polite conversation, told me that her friend’s wife had died a few weeks back. His wife had been battling with a long term illness. The husband was now a solo parent to young twin girls.
There are a number of similar stories to this that have happened over these 10 years. While the context of each of the stories has been vastly different, there has been a single underlying theme. This has been that through sharing my story, I’ve been able to impact the lives of other people. At first, I thought that these events were all just random coincindences. But over time, something much more significant has become clear to me.
Finding my purpose
As a parent, my primary purpose will always be to nurture my boys as best as I possibly can. Even when they become adults making their own way in the world, I anticipate still providing some level of support & guidance to them.
Being a widower to 2 young boys, I just assumed that this would be my main purpose and that everything else would be peripheral. Yet somehow, another picture has emerged. It didn’t really register at all to start with. In fact, it’s taken a number of years for me to fully understand it and even now I’m still figuring parts of it out. What is clear though is that I have at least one other purpose in life. That purpose is to tell my story for the benefit of others. To show people that :
- We don’t have to be defined by the challenges that happen to us in life
- While there are many things in life that we can’t control, there are also some things that we can control
- There is power in vulnerability
- By developing a different mindset, we can face adversity head on and build a new life for ourselves
The future
I obviously don’t know what the future holds for me. But I know that with my main purposes in life having been clearly defined, I will do my best to carry them out. To accept that while I don’t have all the answers, there is something guiding me to do this work. To honour Hazel’s life in raising our boys and using my experiences to help others in some small way.
