Going Solo: The Journey of a solo dad after loss

Going Solo:
The Journey of a Solo Dad After Loss

      I sat on my couch holding a box of tissues.  A dark curtain fell that day.  It was November 25th, 2024, Tiffanie's best day, my worst one.  The day where she heard the words "Well done my good and faithful servant" and the day I heard her breath her last earthly breath.  How could one event be so great for one person and yet so horrific for another.  I sat on the couch she bought, waiting patiently for my mom to bring home our three children.  They had no idea that eight hours earlier that their mom passed away.  The teachers at their school knew, how they held it together I'll never know.  My kids begged for us to come home.  Our youngest eagerly asked multiple times when 'momma' was going to come home.  We told them that Tiff would never be back in the house and that they next time they saw me in the house would be when Tiffanie passed away.  I was wrecked and yet numb at the same time.  Not only had I become a widower, but I also became a solo dad.  How in the world was I supposed to navigate life without my wife, my best friend?  How was I supposed to parent three children alone?  I was scared, still am scared to be honest.  How would I tell them that Tiffanie passed away?  I vividly remember them coming home, seeing me on the couch, and originally getting incredibly excited....until they realized what happened.  There are some moments that are so sacred and sad that words can never convey.  That was one of those moments.  I told them that Tiff went home to be with Jesus, I read them a few verses from the Word, and held my precious weeping babies.  There are moments in this journey that don’t have words for them, and that was one of them.  That was day one of being a solo dad.  I was recently remarried but Les and I have to live apart until our visas are approved, which will be a little bit longer.  That means that as of the day that I'm typing this that I've been a solo dad for 514 days.  The journey of being a widower crushed me and redefined me, but so did the journey of being a 'single' father.  I want to share some of my experience and hopefully help others that are going through the same nightmare experience.

      The first thing that changed was our family routines.  Tiff and I had the same task each night for over ten years.  One would help bath a child and get their teeth brushed, another would get the child dressed, read to them, do devotionals with them, pray with them, and then Tiffanie would religiously sing Away in a Manger.  The routines that we built together suddenly fell on my shoulders alone. Bedtime felt heavier.  Grief felt more difficult in the night hours.  Laughter and joy were replaced by tears and lament.  Dinner felt emptier. And somewhere in the middle of trying to keep everything moving, my own grief at times had to sit there, unprocessed, unspoken, waiting for a quiet moment to release it.

      Becoming a solo parent wasn’t something I trained for. It wasn’t something I asked for.  It wasn't a ministry that I volunteered for.  Never in a million years could I have fathomed that I would be tasked with raising three children alone. It was handed to me through loss, and I’ve had to learn how to walk it out one day at a time, some days with glowing success, other days going to bed thinking that I'm the world's worst father and that I've failed them miserably.  If you’re a man walking this road too, especially with young kids looking up at you, you already know: you don’t get the luxury of falling apart the way you might want to, the way you need too.  Why?  Because they need you.  They need you now more then ever.

      I've always been a dad who liked to work, be busy, to have a full calendar.  There was a time in my ministry life when I balanced two jobs, I sat on a school board, a camp board, and executive board, led a youth group, and taught multiple weeks of VBS.  I loved working late nights and checking jobs off my list.   At the time I didn't think that I was overly busy, I still had time to be a good husband and father.  But after Tiffanie passed away I quickly realized that my life needed to change.  There would be no more late nights, filled weekends, sixty hour work weeks, boards and committees, weeks of crazy travel during the summer.  A part of me had to die in order to love on my kids.  They didn't need a perfect dad, instead they needs a present dad.

      There are days I feel completely inadequate. Days I don’t have the answers, some days I don't have a single answer. Days where I’d rather sit in my grief than engage.  Days I want to lay in bed, head under the covers, hoping that tomorrow would be coming. But I’ve had to make a choice, over and over again, to show up anyway.  Even when I didn't want too, even when I was tired, even when I was hurting, even when I was seemingly broken beyond repair.  They will never know that amount of times I was holding on by a thread while putting them back together.  As a solo dad I had to sit with them. Listen to them.  Laugh when I can, even if need be a fake laugh.  Cry when I needed to and sometimes when they need to see it.  Time together isn’t just important, it’s healing. For them and for me.  I will never get this time back with my children, and I refuse to loss my family at a moment when they need their dad the most.

      Another expected, and yet hard lesson was learning to carry two loads, the load of your grief and theirs.  And sometimes, I had to set mine down for a moment to help carry theirs.  That sounds stoic and some people might think that a person that does that is some sort of hero or should have their name published in the paper.  No.  Putting aside your hurt in the moment does indeed demand sacrifice, but it can create a bitterness and hurt that you can't explain.  Our of necessity and love you prioritize your children, all the while begging God to give you a few quiet moments alone where you can just fall apart.  Now, that doesn’t mean ignoring your pain forever.  That would be incredibly dangerous and foolish.  You can't take care of your children unless you are taking care of yourself too.  It means recognizing that your kids don’t have the capacity to process what you do. They’re confused. They’re hurting. They’re trying to understand something that doesn’t make sense.  For that matter, you as a grown adult can barely understand it, let alone your children with undeveloped emotions.  So there were nights that I swallowed hard, pushed my own emotions down, and stepped into theirs.  Holding them.  Praying with them.  Letting them ask the same questions again and again.  It’s was and still is a sacrifice, but it’s a holy one.  Because love shows up strongest when it costs you something.

      Speaking of sacrifices, I quickly found that this road demands more than I expected.  More patience.  More intentionality.  More surrender.  More selflessness.  It’s not just about providing anymore, it was more then that.  Most men are excellent providers.  It seems to come naturally with the task of being a man, but now it was about shepherding hearts while yours is still breaking.  There are things I’ve had to give up, things like time, comfort, even parts of my own grieving process to make sure my kids feel loved, comforted, and secure.  But I’ve also seen something in that sacrifice: God meets me there.  He meets me in the late nights.  In the quiet prayers.  In the moments where I feel like I’ve got nothing left.  When the bed in empty, when a hot shower is washing away your tears, and when your so exhausted that you can barely stand.  He fills the gaps and still does.

      If there’s one thing I’d say to any man in this position, it’s this, don’t pull away from the church.  Tragically a majority of people prioritizing church are mothers.  Sadly when a wife passes away a families spiritual moorings after become loose and church becomes a negotiable.  I know the temptation. I’ve felt it.  You might have just read that and said to yourself, wait a minute, Pastor Matt was tempted to not go to church?  That must mean that his faith in God was small at the time.  Actually, it was quite the opposite.  It wasn't the task of going to church and worshipping with God that was hard.  Instead, at times my hurting heart wanted to isolate, especially in those first few tender months.  I wanted to avoid the questions.  To cut through the words that people tried to use a poultice to comfort me.  I didn't want to explain what I was feeling.  I wanted to be a hermit, crawl under a rock and avoid humanity.  Yes, my extremely extroverted heart thought that was what it needed.

      But we weren’t built for that.  The church isn’t just a place you attend or merely show up.  It's not a social club or a religious hang out.  It's not a place of obligation or duty.  Instead it’s a place that carries you when you can’t carry yourself.  It's a place where the body of Christ is meant to do what it was created to do, to be the hands and feet of Christ.  You need that, and guess what, your kids need it too.  They need to see consistency.  They need to see faith lived out.  They need to be surrounded by people who will speak life into them when your strength runs thin.  And you, YES YOU, need brothers who will stand beside you, not with empty words, but with presence.  You as a solo dad need other men in your life, moreso now then any other time in your life.

      I want to make this clear, I didn’t choose this story and I would love to not have to live it.  I would never in a million life times choose to go down this pathway, but I can choose what I do with it.  There are other men out there right now walking into the same silence, maybe you reading this, maybe a man that you thought about the entire time reading this article.  They are sitting at the same dinner tables. Trying to figure out how to lead a family through grief while barely holding themselves together.  And maybe that’s where ministry begins.  I remember when my burden for widowers ministry was birthed.  I thought I had to have all the questions answered, that my heart had to be fully healed, and that I had to have it all figured out.  But beloved, that's no ministry.  For it was wasn't about coming from a place of having it all figured out, but from a place of understanding and the same terrible experience.  So, reach out.  Speak honestly.  Show them they’re not alone.  Remind them that their pain is valid, their voice is heard, and that they aren't a second hand citizen on the road of grief.  Sometimes the most powerful ministry isn’t a sermon, it’s sitting across from another man and saying, “I get it. I’m walking it too.”  Or maybe you aren't walking through loss and grief but you still want to help.  My advice to you is simple this, presence preaches.  Be there and be available.

      I wish I could tell you that the road you are walking will be easy and brief, but I would be lying to you.  This road is hard, probably harder then any other experience you will endure. There’s no way around that.  But God hasn’t left us in it.  He sees the unseen moments.  He sees those sacrifices, the tears, the prayers whispered when no one else is around.  And He is near (Psalm 34:18).  So keep showing up.  Keep loving your kids deeply.  Keep choosing faith, even when it feels thin. You’re not just surviving this, you’re leading through it.  And that matters more than you know.  Let me close with the lyrics of a song, 'you've got a friend in me.'  If this is your current plight, please know, that you have a friend in me and my ministry, Sons of the Shepherd exists to help men exactly like you.  I'm praying for you, I'm cheering for you, and I'm here for you.