Widowed Fathers

I have read few books that speak honestly and in detail about being a widowed father. Compared to the number of grief memoirs written by women, there aren’t many written by men. There should be more of both.

 

A recent book by Donald Rosenstein and Justin Yopp is excellent—The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life. It shares the stories of men in a support group that met monthly and talked through their struggles of suddenly having to raise children as a solo parent. As they shared their insights and emotions, they helped each other navigate and survive their new challenge. 

 

Father and Son Boxes

A box is a box is a box, Gertrude Stein kind of said. Or Pu-Tai. But a smiling box, well, that’s something else.

Being a son is sitting inside a box just as being a father is. (I imagine the mother-daughter relationship has similar boxes.)

There’s a Father box for how men are expected to act in relation to their sons, basically the law-giver box. You do what I say!

Retiring Into the Forest

I am not happy with my parents. Or my wife’s parents. Or your parents, even though I’ve never met them, because they’re probably like mine. 

Throughout our lives, we’re always planning ahead for what comes next. Getting our ducks in order. Then we retire and stop making adjustments. We settle into a comfortable routine and let life go on without us. Except that life doesn’t stop changing.

Men and the Death of Their Fathers: Neil Chethik

Neil Chethik, FatherLoss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms with the Deaths of Their Dads, Hachette Books, 2001.

            Neil Chethik provides insights into how men grieve death in his book, FatherLoss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms with the Deaths of Their Dads.

            Through interviews and questionnaires of hundreds of men who lost a father, some when they were in their teens and all the way up to men in their sixties, Chethik presents the scope of male reactions. Some men were on good terms with their fathers when they died, others were not. Some were physically taking care of their fathers in their last years, while others hadn’t seen their fathers in decades.