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MyBaby2Bump Podcast: The Widowed Dad

7th September 20207th September 2020
by Mark Wilcock

Here is the link my last ever ‘Grief’ share – it practically includes everything on my checklist, it’s as raw as it gets in all honesty.

It is in the form of a podcast, for those new to this media.

It has no edits, lots on the charity ‘Widowed and Young’.

Enjoy

Mark

Main link –https://www.mybump2baby.com/podcasts/fiftyshadesofmotherhood/the-widowed-dad
Via Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/2ZzMmFzjg1EsPlGZ8mdYyr

Via Apple – https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fifty-shades-of-motherhood/id1517280582

Via TuneIn – https://tunein.com/podcasts/Kids–Family-Podcasts/Fifty-Shades-of-Motherhood-p1331099/

Via Stitcher – https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/fifty-shades-of-motherhood?refid=stpr

ViaGooglehttps://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTQ0ODIwLnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC00Mjg5Mjcz?hl=en-GB&ved=2ahUKEwip1vORhJrqAhXJilwKHZcYAiUQjrkEegQICRAU&ep=6

Being Mum and Dad

BBC Life After Death: How I coped becoming a…

7th September 20208th September 2020
by Mark Wilcock

Early this year I received an invitation from the BBC to be involved in the creation of a short documentary around the topic of grief. Well, male grief to be more specific with my own flavour. The creation of this miniseries was to bring together a number of people who had been affected by mental health issues and bereavement.

After 6 hours of filming in my home in Southport and down in London. I was expecting a little more than 9 minutes of footage to be included in the final edit. I’m guessing the whole Covid-19 lockdown played a big part, or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. It really did make me think twice about ever doing something like this again. Especially considering the amount of time, effort and personal information Marco and I had initially put in.

Anyhow, that’s enough grumbles from me. I hope this finds the right people out there, even if it just 9 mins of empathy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-52910362

Best wishes

Mark x

Anniversaries

738 days before widowhood

24th April 201924th April 2019
by Mark Wilcock

‘Hauoli la Ho’omana’o’ is Hawaiian for ‘Happy Anniversary’.

Hauoli la Ho’omana’o to this very day which took place 4 years ago in 2015 on Wai’alae beach, Oahu, Hawaii. Back then, our wedding was probably the happiest day of my life before Margot was born.

Now, it’s just an anniversary without the happy. There’s nothing to celebrate. If anything, it would be the 738 days we enjoyed as a married couple. To celebrate the love for someone that I will always be grateful to have found.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to write something meaningful for today. I just haven’t found the right words.

Apart from deeply missing Katherine within each day of my life. The craziest part of days’ like these is the thought of not receiving a card containing her handwriting. It’s just something really sacred and personal we had in our relationship that I would really look forward to. She wrote the best cards with the most thoughtful messages. As much as I tried, I could never compete with her words of happiness for the love we shared.

Last year I decided I didn’t want to ever mark this anniversary for the reason that 7 days is all that separates it from my wife’s passing. However positive I try to be, it’s just been too hard.

I was woken up a little earlier than normal by Margot this morning. So I decided that before I went to work, I was going to spend more time than normal with my daughter. We played, chatted and had breakfast together. We enjoyed lots of special ‘squishy’ cuddles and I told her how much I love her. I attempted some light toddler talk to explain just how much she means to me.

You just can’t help but laugh when your child delivers a response like “stop being silly Daddy, you’re a good boy and I’m a good girl. We can both have chocolate eggs today, ok”. I guess we both wanted to start our day in jubilant fashion. We did eventually manage to set off to her Nana’s house with a chocolate egg, secretly stashed for later this evening.

After I dropped her off, I then drove to my place of work. I shuffled Spotify in my car and ‘Telephone Line’ by ELO started to play. I didn’t feel the need to press the shuffle button again. I just listened as I drove.

I hadn’t heard this song for a long time. Ironically, it made me think about just how much I wanted to speak to Katherine again, even if it was just over a telephone line. I even managed to make myself chuckle as I imagined just how much the phone bill would be.

I miss her so much.

I thought about the meaning of today and made the decision that going forward, Katherine’s birthday should be the date I mark with my daughter. A day to smile and celebrate.

Maybe one day in the future I’ll tell her the significance, but in many ways, today is just another day for now. And yet, when I think about it, today could also be a day that changes everything for someone else. I’m here writing about my thoughts on it. Sharing my reasoning and experience with other people. Possibly helping others that could be searching for stories to help their own life after the loss of a loved one.

Maybe this is something meaningful after all?

I always try to understand that my scenario of bereavement was totally out of my control. It can’t control me forever too. So for now, today has nothing to offer me but pain. It is definitely not about others behaving any more lovingly towards me or Margot. It’s certainly not about cards, gifts or gestures anymore.

For me, it’s about being thankful to have had the 738 days of marriage to Katherine.

For me, it’s about the people who came to Hawaii that are still in my life.

For me, today’s a day I give special thanks that Katherine made me a Dad to such a wonderful little girl.

For me, It’s about being the one who’s lucky enough to be able to spend another day with my daughter.

For me, it’s about dropping my daughter off at her Nana’s and she was happy.

Accepting the new you

Widowed Parenthood: Back to the future

15th April 201916th April 2019
by Mark Wilcock

Last week I went back to the future. I had one of those spontaneous moments when we bump into someone we haven’t seen for a while. For me, it was an old work colleague. I hadn’t seen this fellow for a very long time. We managed to avoid most of the pointless small talk, it was one of those good and meaningful catch ups. With the added highlight that he had recently become a stay at home Dad. Despite my single parent widower status being the only variance in circumstance, we exchanged our parental knowledge.

Regardless of us no longer working collaboratively, we gradually discovered just how much we still had in common. We found alignment in our views and all the parental pearls of wisdom we had gained. Later that day, I started to have mixed emotions around the whole conversation. As nice as it was, it was hard to swallow the fact that we were still different in a big way, he had a wife and his child had a mother.

I knew I had to remember the positive outcome of the conversation. We were just two young men, each doing a job as a parent without making a fuss, but should we be making a fuss? I started to think about how Dads could have a positive side effect on how we see men in general. In truth, the stereotypical view of Dad’s in our society has come a very long way from when I was a child. Yet I accept our society’s view hasn’t fully changed. I know I could easily start a debate if I asked a majority of parents if they thought a Dad’s job was to earn money, and a Mum’s job is to look after the home and family.

By stepping up to the mark, have I defined a more positive view on what we think is typical of the average man. On reflection, Yes, I have. Should I be writing about it? Absolutely!

I can walk around with a happy face on most of the time, but in reality, I do live in a crazy world. I have learnt to become the master juggler of nursery drop-offs, pickups, running a clean and happy home, giving out buckets of unconditional love, making meals and working full time. Somewhere in the midst of all that chaos, I do actually find some ‘me’ time too. Is it tough? Of course.

I can honestly say that I don’t like it at all, I absolutely love it!

The past highlights of the nightime feeding, teething, learning to eat, immunisations, first steps, first words, birthday parties, playgroup activities, potty training, family holidays… to name a few, where massive challenges. However, it is these moments that make me feel happy too. Happy to have achieved a milestone for my child. Having been through all these moments alone I always sign each one off with “Marky boy, take a bow son”, I always feel proud. I never doubt that in my mind that, if Katherine was alive, she would be proud too.

I don’t like writing this, but I feel I should point it out. Sadly, there will always be families out there with both parents at a disadvantage. Some children might miss something from a family with both parents. Maybe it is out of the parents’ control and they have to work around the clock, or they work nights? Could it be one of the parents isn’t actually interested? Maybe love isn’t expressed openly in a family? My point being, in some cases many single-parent families are doing a much better job raising children than families with both parents.

I want my little girl, Margot, to grow up knowing that raising children isn’t a man or a woman’s job but it’s the job of a parent. Social class or status means nothing in terms of life and happiness. I want her to understand that men and women can be whatever they want. I’ve absorbed both the Mum and Dad roles into a hybrid version of myself. What I have turned into has extended beyond all those traits considered to be the stereotype of masculinity.

Does this fit your situation, or can you relate to what I am describing? Then you should know it’s going to be ok for your child or children. You’re going to be ok. I used to ponder how I was going to get through it all. I’m here and it’s all working out, in it’s own strange and adapted way. We should all feel proud to be a Dad. Even within the hardest years.

For me, there is no better description of how it feels to be a parent than in the words of the author, Elizabeth Stone. Having a child is like consenting to have your heart walk around outside of your body! And this is why we put our heart and soul into our role. Especially with being a widowed single parent Dad challenging traditional stereotypes of masculinity and fundamentally redefining what it means to be a man.

Accepting the new you

Dad’s who can

8th April 20198th April 2019
by Mark Wilcock

Over the weekend, I took my little girl out to the local amusement park, Pleasureland in Southport. This is what I like to class as ‘quality’ time together. We generated lots of fun and laughter. It had generously refilled my love, happiness and content levels to the brim. I also, subconsciously had my writing cap and the day got me thinking. Without sounding morbid. As widowed single parents, how sad are we, and how sad have we been? And why is it people like me, that like to let you know.

I know that the real factor behind this thought was that I now have a long-term outlet for my grief, my blog. I have the ability to reach out to fellow widowers. My intention was never to discover the answers. My aim is to communicate the themes of loss and grief for men. I want to provoke some thought into my experience. To support people just like me and give some insight into the answers I originally fought for.

By the end of the day, it became apparent that my initial feelings had led me to see just how far I’ve come in 2 years. I’ve realised that I’m now at a point now where I was balancing the demands of my full-time job and the demands of my child. She was only adapting to this new world. A world where she doesn’t even know her Mum or the events that have occurred. Yet, she is the happiest little girl that any parent could ask for.

Despite what has happened in our past, I have always put my family first. This made me feel good. Good in the sense that I have confronted the reality of my new life. As an adult, I reached out for support when I’ve needed it. As a blogger, I’ve also strived to communicate as effectively as I can to everyone around me. Now I can start to see the outputs of my decisions and actions. The positives in my life are really starting to shine through.

I gradually started to reflect on exactly what were my actions and how did I employ them? By the end of the day, I thought to myself, “I need to get the main points out of my head and onto paper”.

Intervention when I needed it

I’ve managed to get through the heavy and hard stages of grief. I’ve managed to accept them as they’ve come. I’ve waded through each one in my own time until I was ready to move onto the next wave. I’ve allowed myself the time I needed to also heal some of my wounds. I’d sought counselling when I needed it. My process of learning to cope without my wife was and is a tough, complex and complicated path. Being able to accept the counselling I needed has also helped me become a better Dad to Margot. I’ve developed a warmer, more nurturing and sensitive side for her to enjoy.

I also joined various support groups for those who have survived the death of a spouse. One was with the national charity, Widowed & Young (WAY). I was always aware of WAY, I just never got around to explore the organisation at the beginning. However, this is where my self-assurance in widowhood really started to grow. They offer a vast support network tailored for young widowed men and women. When I discovered how members sought to understand and help others, the feeling of isolation seemed like a thing of the past. Peer support from someone who suffers from their own pain of bereavement is probably the most selfless and noble ability I’ve witnessed.

Since the beginning, I desired the ability to communicate with others in my position. It was here all along, physically and virtually. My only regret is that I never became involved earlier.

Accepting help from my friends and family

When help was offered to me, I always accepted it. For me, there are few things in life more tragic than losing a wife and the mother of my child. My family, friends, neighbours and extended family members all offered help to me. I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t been willing to accept it graciously and allow others the opportunity to serve my family.

I kept traditions alive

No matter how big or small, I maintained our family traditions. Though traditions are predictable in certain points of time. Amongst the chaos, for me, they brought real stability in my home. Decorating the Christmas tree early was a thing; I chose not to ignore the tradition as much as I didn’t mentally feel like doing it. I even ensured I took my daughter away holiday once a year, even if it has to be modest to be affordable. Whatever the traditions are, hang onto them as a family.

I organised my home

Getting yourself organised as best you can be tricky whilst grieving, for obvious reasons. Some of the family routines had been Katherine’s domain, but now it had fallen upon me to take them all on. The more I made routine tasks more “automated,” the easier the transition became for me. When I eventually managed to schedule my weekday evenings for things like laundry, shopping, and cleaning, the more single parent life became manageable.

I discovered that when I could get these tasks completed in the week, it took a huge amount of stress off the weekends. More importantly, I work full time. This enabled me to experience more fun and quality time with my daughter.

Healthy body = Healthy Mind

The hardest and most important balance of them all is monitoring your health. Like me, many newly widowed fathers will neglect their own physical, mental or emotional health while going through grief. Before my wife passed I was an active runner. Each week I would run 3-4 times a week. When she left us, exercise seemed like the most impossible element to maintain in my life. I rightly focused on my own daughter and not me. I drove myself into the ground. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t eat right and when the night came so did the drink.

If and when you can. Try to include as much exercise as you can. Even if it just playing in the garden or going for a walk with your child. At one stage, during the early days. I bought a treadmill and placed it in an empty part of my house. I would purposely set my morning alarm an hour before my daughter would wake, I’d run 3 miles before breakfast. For me running was more like meditation. It would allow me to ponder my thoughts and let me focus on the day ahead.

If you are a recently widowed father. You can find lots of support, help and advice. You will no doubt need to follow your heart when you feel you’re ready to accept it. At first, it will be difficult to see any horizon. By taking the process slowly and naturally will allow you to move through this most difficult of situations and transitions in a more positive way than you might see presently. I have listed a few of the services I’ve used within the ‘Widower Support’ page of my blog.

Accepting the new you

The reality of learning to love again

29th March 201929th March 2019
by Mark Wilcock

When you think about love, it isn’t exclusive. It’s not exclusive to one thing or one being alone at any given time. Within our short little lives, it is endless and ours to express to whatever and whomever we desire. In terms of experiencing a bereavement of a spouse, widowers can choose to lock it away forever or to eventually give it to someone new. The right is ours alone.

I have read a lot of fascinating stories about how widowers have found love again in short spaces of time. It is very common for young widowers to find sudden love. It was only 2 days ago I was reading a very interesting article on the Huffington Post about how ex-Sky Sports presenter, Simon Thomas found love again within 12 months of his wife’s passing. Another celebrity status widower in the form of Patton Oswalt, again he was engaged within 12 months of losing his wife. Each with their own story on how they heal and embrace their new lives.

Ex Sky Sports presenter and fellow widower – Simon Thomas

Being a single windowed parent in my 30’s I wanted to live my life too. I wanted to live my life the way Katherine would have wanted me to. I was not destined to remain in mourning forever. I did not choose to shut down, wear black and become a miserable and bitter father to my daughter. Instead, I chose to grieve in my way, in my time and to move my life towards my own design – a design that happily included new love and new adventures.

If you have also chosen a similar pathway and you’re equipped to grip the opportunity by the balls. Be prepared to generate a level of shock reaction from others. This will usually come from the people who I like to refer to as ‘observers of grief’. These individuals generally fall into the categories of friends and outsiders. For me, it was mostly a selection of my wife’s friends, 2 even being bridesmaids at our wedding. Exposing just how shallow and selfish some people can be during a time of transition and openness. More than likely they’ll probably want nothing more to do with you or your children again. I have touched upon this topic in my previous post about grief and friendships not mixing.

During my experience, I noticed an array of remarks and comments from various people in the form of “it’s too soon”, “how could he do this to her” and “he’s just not grieving properly”. As if ‘they’ defined a universal grieving time period from their book = ‘The Idiots Guide to Grief’. It is criticism like this that we, the widowers are attuned to.

The reaction of others begged an obvious question from me to them. Since when did ‘learning to love again’ translate into ‘forgetting’ our loved one?

Exactly just how long is ‘long enough’ before we’re allowed to live again in the eyes of the observer. Is it 1 year, 2, 3, 4, maybe 10 or even 20 years until they’re totally satisfied to let us move on in life, to find happiness again? The honest truth is, only we can make this decision and it has nothing to do with anyone else around you. However, no matter what time frame your heart and soul has chosen, you can’t win. It could be in 5 years’ time and the reaction from the observers will always remain the same. I always knew that their reactions would be a selfish one. No matter how you feel just remember that If they had gone through a loss like ours they would never judge a person for wanting to fall in love again.

In broad society, it’s quite common how we accept a stage of our life to be over before we can start the next one. Our thinking is very linear in how we understand our own emotional states. The thought of overlapping grief with love to the observer usually is impossible to grasp. Not being directly linked to the bereavement, how can they? They will feel like you’re being disloyal or minimising the loss of the person. They could even think they’ll fall into this category if they show a level of support towards you.

As widowers we all know we carry our grief with us forever, it cannot simply be removed or forgotten. We are not required to conclude our grieving to begin a new relationship. The love in our hearts isn’t moved to one side to make room for someone new. If and when it happens an addition is built on. The heart becomes greater. We don’t have a capacity or limit to the amount of love we can give in our lives, love is infinite.

Since my wife passed, the love I have for her has never moved, it’s still firmly cemented into my entire being. It will remain that way for the rest of my life and will never go away. Not ever. Not with the passage of time. Not with the introduction of a new person into my life. I am honouring Katherine’s legacies of love and service by continuing to move forward; by modelling the best example that I can for my daughter, by building a family unit and living a life with my new partner, whom I love deeply. By doing all of these things, I am indeed honouring the legacies of love and service that Katherine left for me to carry forward.

I believe that all young widowers can do the same, if and when you choose to do so. There is no time limit when the time is right. When it does happen, and you let it in. Embrace it and carry forward the legacies that were entrusted to you by your late spouse. If you choose it, living your new life can include companionship again… and love. Just choose carefully, choose wisely — and love again abundantly.

Because you can!

Accepting the new you

Bacardi & coke and a pint of grief, please

19th March 201919th March 2019
by Mark Wilcock

When Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) first introduced me to grief, alcohol was everywhere. For the first 7 months, during the evening’s, once my daughter had gone to sleep I would frequently self-medicate. I became dependant on it to help numb and avoid my pain. If I’m honest, when the silence came so did the darkness. Alcohol was the only thing I knew I could use to beat grief away just so I could avoid or postpone it that little bit longer. Without it I knew as soon as I took my ‘Dad’ hat off, I would crumble. Grief was a new beast I’d never encountered. I just wasn’t ready for it. Alcohol was my weapon, without it I’d simply be punching smoke.

For me, using alcohol to sedate myself was just one phase of my widowhood I had to go through. Especially when dealing with the sudden death of my wife. It was only last weekend when I started to think about just how cohesive alcohol is in all our lives. It’s so deeply integrated that we don’t even notice how acceptable it is. Life is good? Have a drink. Life is shit? Have a drink. Out celebrating, are we? Have a drink? Cooking a nice steak at home tonight? You don’t have to drive – roll out the bottles of red. At a wedding? Oooh, free drinks. Wetting the baby’s head? Have a drink. Big match on the television? Then it’s beer o’clock. At a funeral? You guessed it – drinks! It’s probably safe to say unless you work in a pub or restaurant, your place of work is the safest place to avoid alcohol.

This grief self-care medicine created a massive gap between knowledge and behaviour. At the back of my mind, I always knew it was a risk to become dependent on drinking the pain away, it wasn’t a healthy coping skill. Being a single parent, I had responsibilities. I had to be Mum and Dad. I knew people would be looking at me to see how I was coping. Plus, who has ever made a good decision when drinking? Somehow, I just found a deeper connection between rationalisation and alcohol. It addressed the symptoms of my grief, not the underlying problems. It made a real exploration of the underlying issues more difficult, masking them with a temporary “fix” and delaying me from addressing the feelings I should address. It put me at high risk for developing dependence. It put a strain on my body and more importantly my mind.

I’ve always loved craft beers and fine wines, I still do to this day. I’d be one of the biggest hypocrites in the world to say you have to cut it all out of your life. It is really important to highlight that your grief can always put you at risk of developing a problem. I feel nothing but shame when I look back now. Once I could eventually break the cycle I knew I could embrace my grief and make it part of my life. This is what I described in the analogy of grief I shared last week. I can always recall the groundhog day feeling each morning I would wake up after drinking, the grief was still there looking back at me, it never went anywhere. This is when I soon realised that the only way to release my strong emotions is to feel them. This made me discover more self-awareness and it enforced more moderation of certain things into my life.

Accepting the new you

5th March 20199th April 2019
by Mark Wilcock

One thing I’ve learnt as a widower is that much of my experience has common elements with that of other widowers, but we each also have some very unique components in our individual journeys. For those who are supporting a grieving friend or family member, I’ve got some bad news for you. A life-changing chapter of this category will change that person.

When someone experiences bereavement, especially with a version of sudden death to a loved one like I did. Most of your identity and traits will be stripped apart and they become something totally new. The Mark all my family and friends knew had faded like a dead star, I’m no longer that person they all knew. My daughter will never ever know the person her Dad used to be.

When I emerged from the deepest and most painful first few months, crazy was the new normal for me. I quickly realised that I hadn’t a clue who this new person was. The external labels of ‘widower’ and ‘Father’ were all I had left to define me. Most of my friends didn’t know what to say to me anymore. Though I was off work at the time, I was desperately trying to step back into some sort of routine, but I just didn’t feel the same. I was confused about my purpose. Everything I knew about my life was set in the old ‘pre-grief’ world. If ever a rationale for temporary insanity was needed, it was certainly found each time I looked back at myself in the mirror. Even during the dark days, I would selfishly ponder if I even wanted to continue as this ill-defined broken-person that remained.

When I think about it, I guess we all experience and struggle with it in indifferently. It just looks different on everyone because we all experience and express it in our own way. I found that once I understood and accepted that my wife was dead I could then begin discovering this new person I’d become. I felt a level of mixed emotions about the one thing the new me had managed to retain, my sense of humour. I guess that actually sounds ironically funny in the form of the old Mark.

Naturally my outlook on how precious life was had magnified dramatically. The importance of money became pathetic, it was just a plaything to enable some ‘fun’ and get the things my daughter and I deserved. A new garden, a new car, holidays, clothes and lots of toys. Whatever I wanted I bought, I just lived in the ‘now’, tomorrow didn’t exist. This was when I really started to feel like I was losing it.

As the months went by, living as this new person was hard, you have to make your own blueprint to adjust. I knew I had to keep myself mentally engaged, I wanted to choose life and meaning. I had to quickly come to terms with the new me and learn to adapt to what I was now all about. Having a child, I couldn’t afford to stop because I’ve got someone who depends on me. Every day I could hear Katherine’s voice in my mind saying, ‘You can’t just give up, I won’t let you’.

To process what I’d become, I knew I had to embrace my grief first. None of us wants to be sad, alone, delusional, lost, or without purpose. And yet, that is often exactly what we need to experience in order to process our grief.

I don’t have an exact answer for this topic, I just really want to emphasise the importance of change you’ll experience. Everyone will reinvent and discover the new you differently, this is just my story. You should always do it at your own pace. There is no need to rush it. Always allow yourself time and space to do this in a way that supports your situation. And take comfort, at some point, things should get easier to adjust. An important part of healing and adapting to your new life is discovering the role your loved one will play in your life after a loved one’s death.

My season of grief has left me a little bit wary, a little bit wise, and a little bit crazy, but stronger!