From learning to plait hair to juggling grief with raising a family… Four widowed dads share their heartbreaking journeys into single parenthood
THROWN into single parenthood in the most tragic of circumstances, these brave dads have had to juggle their own grief with raising their families.
From perfecting the art of plaiting their little girl’s hair, to learning how to cook all while helping their children come to terms with their mum’s death, they truly are super dads…
Rob Duffin, 47, is a naval architect and lives in Chobham, Surrey, with his children Jacob, 15 and Harriet, 13. His wife Jo-Ann died in August 2017, aged 43. Rob says...
Jo spent the final months of her life quietly preparing me for single fatherhood.
She knew she was dying, after being diagnosed with the incurable neurological condition Motor Neurone Disease, and wanted to do everything she could to help me before she died.
She wrote me a manual on how to run the house, containing everything from what to buy at the supermarket, to domestic hacks like placing pillowcases and a sheet inside a duvet cover, to keep matching sets of bed linen together.
She also compiled a recipe book of our favourite family meals, so I’d never be short of inspiration in the kitchen. I use them both all the time, and I hear her voice in every word.
In early 2017, she saw her GP because she felt exhausted all the time.
Normally fit and active, she loved skiing and juggled her career as a speech and language therapist with being a mum.
She had tests and saw different specialists, all the while growing weaker.
There’s no test for MND, other conditions have to be eliminated first, so it took six months before she was formally diagnosed.
By then we suspected she had MND but it was still devastating when it was confirmed. There was no hope of recovery.
The average life expectancy for someone with the condition is two to five years, but Jo told me she knew in her heart she didn’t have very much time left.
She spent five weeks in Woking and Sam Beare Hospices while our house was adapted because by now she was dependent on a wheelchair, and then she was able to come home, which was what she wanted.
Jacob and Harriet were 14 and 12, so it was impossible to shield them from what was happening.
Jo and I tried to be honest and open with them, but it was heartbreaking.
It’s impossible to prepare children for losing their mum. They could see her deteriorating and by the end she couldn’t even move her arms to hug them.
I was so focused on caring for Jo, and the children, that I couldn’t bear to think ahead to when I would be a single dad.
Jo died in her sleep.
I found her dead on the morning of August 20, 2017. It sounds strange but it was still a huge shock, I just couldn’t believe she had gone.
Until then I’d been filled with anger towards the disease, but as I sat with her I felt numb with disbelief. It was just me now.
Jo was the heartbeat of our family, she was the one who looked after the children, made sure they had clean socks and kept the fridge stocked.
It’s only now I fully appreciate everything she did, because it’s now down to me.
Over time the children and I have settled into a new routine.
I work in London but they are able to stay in school until early evening and have their dinner and do homework there, because it’s a boarding school, which is a big help to me.
We visit her grave together and separately; we all recognise sometimes it’s ok to grieve alone and sometimes you want company.
They know I’m always here for them if they want to talk about how they’re feeling.
Jo wanted more for us than just “getting by” after she died.
She wanted us to laugh, to have adventures, to go on holiday and to live life to the fullest, not allowing her death to define us a family forever.
So that’s what we do. Last week we went on the world’s longest zip wire in London. Watching Jacob and Harriet flying across it, laughing and squealing, I knew Jo would approve.
Jamie McHugh, 32, is a bank manager and lives in Warrington with his daughter Freya, four. His wife Kellyanne died in August 2017, aged 32. Jamie says...
I always wanted a daughter, and when Freya was born in 2014 I was delighted.
People ask me how I feel about being a single dad raising a girl on my own, but I’m ready for all the milestones ahead – if she wants me to come wedding dress shopping with her in 30 years, I’ll be there for her.
When Freya was just four months old, Kellyanne was rushed to hospital with crippling stomach pains.
A scan showed a mass blocking her bowel and she was operated on immediately.
It was a cancerous tumour, which had been growing silently throughout her pregnancy.
One minute we were a happy family with a tiny baby, the next everything had come crashing down around us.
Most people with bowel cancer are much older, but Kellyanne had support from a charity called Mummy’s Star, which helps women affected by cancer in pregnancy, and it helped her meeting other mums in the same situation.
She had eight months of chemotherapy which was gruelling, but the cancer returned to her ovaries and lower bowel in early 2015.
Doctors still believed they could cure her, and she underwent more surgery and chemotherapy.
Told she was now cancer free, we both felt optimistic and began trying to live a normal life again, enjoying watching Freya grow into a toddler.
In September 2016, however, the cancer returned again and this time it was in her spine. It was terminal and all doctors could do was try to manage the pain.
She was given three years but after the diagnosis it was like a switch had been flicked and she deteriorated very quickly.
She spent weeks in the Christie Hospital in Manchester, but determined to be a mum for as long as she could, would phone Freya every evening to read her a bedtime story.
And I would bring Freya’s tea into hospital so she could have it with Kellyanne.
Freya had no memories of her mum before she was sick, and in a way that was easier, as it was normal for her to visit mummy in hospital; she wasn’t frightened or upset.
In June 2017, Kellyanne suffered a seizure at home and I drove her to hospital. The cancer had spread to her brain and I knew there wasn’t much time left. She spent the last weeks of her life in a hospice, very confused, her short-term memory gone.
For the first few months after her death I was running on adrenaline, determined to show everyone I was coping fine.
On reflection I was in deep shock, and in January this year the reality that Kellyanne is gone, and I am a single dad, hit me hard.
I’ve had bereavement counselling which has helped, but I’m really aware of my own mortality – I’m the last thing standing between Freya and being an orphan.
I worry about getting sick, or being in an accident.
Kellyanne left Freya and I letters when she died.
In Freya’s she says she wants her to grow up without regrets, to travel the world and seize every opportunity. In mine she told me not to give up on life, and to find happiness.
Before she died Kellyanne took part in a fashion show to raise money for in Manchester, and yesterday, Freya and I followed in her footsteps by walking the catwalk in her memory.
Wayne Gobey, 42, is an engineer. He lives in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, with his son Samuel, six. His wife Alison died in 2014, aged 38. Wayne says...
Last week, Samuel rode his bike for the first time without stabilisers. I felt incredibly proud, but it was a bittersweet moment too because Alison wasn’t there to see it.
It’s times like that, when Samuel hits a milestone, that I miss her most because she should be here to share them with us.
Samuel was 11months old when Alison was diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer.
For five months she had been suffering from sickness, unable to eat and had lost almost four stone, but her symptoms kept being dismissed as reflux and her body recovering from pregnancy.
She underwent chemotherapy, but in October 2013 we were told it was incurable.
It was absolutely devastating. She died at home in January 2014, surrounded by family, two months shy of Samuel’s second birthday.
After meeting at work, we’d tried for a long time to have a baby, so when Alison found out she was pregnant with Samuel we were over the moon.
I look back now and I think how good our life was.
She was a self-employed gardener with her own business, we had a lovely home, a perfect baby boy. I felt like a lucky man, with no idea that just around the corner, there would be such heartbreak.
Alison was never able to come to terms with the fact she was going to die and leave her son without a mother and me without a wife.
I understood completely; how could she ever find peace knowing her life with us was being snatched from her by cancer?
Because it was too hard for her, I put together a memory box for Samuel instead.
As he was just a toddler when she died, he doesn’t really have any memories of his own, but rather than just tell him what his mum was like, I want him to have things like a bottle of her perfume, her favourite CD, her passport, photos of her on holiday.
Just little things that will help him know who she was as he grows up.
One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced as a single dad is helping Samuel accept our family dynamic.
Most of his friends at school have their mum and dad at home and he has really struggled with feeling different.
Through a charity called (WAY), we’ve met other widowed parents and their children, and it’s really helped him see that there are other kids out there like him.
I’ve also found it useful to swap advice and get support from other parents about how to best help Samuel with his grief.
My family and friends are always there but they don’t understand what I’m going through, the loneliness and the anxiety about whether I’m doing a good enough job being dad and mum to Samuel.
Other widowed parents get it.
I still feel out of my depth every day; no parenting manual can prepare you for being a single parent after being widowed. But I look at Samuel and I think how amazing and resilient he is, and that inspires me.
I know Alison would be incredibly proud of the wonderful boy he’s growing up to be, and I hope she’s proud of me too.
Tim Mitchell, 48, works in IT. He lives in Bath with his children Ollie, 12, and Flori, seven. His wife Annmarie died in December 2014, aged 43. Tim says...
If you’d told me, before Annmarie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, that I’d end up a dab hand at doing plaits and being able to whip up a pasta dish my kids will actually eat, I’d never have believed you.
I was a typical weekend dad, working long hours during the week while Annmarie was a full-time mum who ran our home. She used to joke I didn’t know where the kitchen was.
Life is so different now. After she died I tried to keep everything the same, even attempting to cook the delicious Sunday roasts she’d prepare every week.
But over time I’ve realised I don’t need to be the perfect dad and put so much pressure on myself - it’s OK to just be good enough when you’re managing on your own.
When Annmarie was 17 weeks pregnant with Flori, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and told that 60 per cent of women with the disease die within five years.
Her attitude was very much, “We need to just get on with this".
She was incredibly brave and more worried about the baby than herself.
She had two cysts removed from her ovaries, and chemotherapy. After Flori was born in February 2011, three weeks early, Annmarie had a total hysterectomy and more chemotherapy.
For the next few years we were a normal family, bringing up two children and making memories, but the fear of cancer returning was always in the back of my mind.
And in September 2013, Annmarie collapsed at home and was rushed to hospital, where doctors discovered cysts throughout her abdomen.
Two months later we were told her condition was terminal and she was too unwell to even have chemotherapy to prolong her life.
It was impossible for me to begin to imagine a life without Annmarie in it.
Originally from Dublin, she was deeply caring with an infectious laugh; she really did light up the room.
I asked her did she have any wishes for how she wanted me to raise the children? She simply said, “Love them like I do.”
She wanted me to face single fatherhood head on, not be scared and to believe in myself that I could manage. And she made me promise not to cut Flori’s hair, as she had hated losing her own hair during chemotherapy.
Ollie was old enough to ask questions and understand how sick his mum was, but Flori thought it was normal that Annmarie was sick - it was all she remembered.
I recall a month after Annmarie died, I was putting Flori to bed, and she said: “Mum’s been in hospital a long time, when is she coming home?”
Annmarie died in a hospice on December 21, 2014. Ollie insisted on decorating the house for Christmas, and now he and Flori do it every year - it’s become a tradition in our house.
When I’ve had low moments, and just felt overwhelmed by everything, they’ve shown me that life not only has to go on, but that we owe it to Annmarie to enjoy it too.
She’d be so cross if she thought we were sad all the time, so we get out on our bikes and have fun whenever we can.
I know they’ll be planning a surprise for me for Father’s Day, but I don’t need a card or a gift - just being with them is what gives me the greatest joy.
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