April 12th 2022, a day that will never leave my memory. This is the day I effectively became a single dad. My wife, Rachel, didn’t come off of life support for another 3 months, but that morning was last time I saw her for who she was, fun, caring, and ready to take on another challenge.

I dropped Rachel off at The Spire hospital in Cambridge that morning, where she would undergo what was deemed successful hip surgery. I received a WhatsApp message at 14:52 saying “Back in room all good x”, 10 minutes later she was found unconscious in her room, having suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. Unfortunately there was no equipment monitoring her in the recovery room. She was resuscitated, and taken to Intensive Care at Addenbrookes hospital. They had no clue of how long she had been unconscious for, but it could have been anything up to 18 minutes. All scans showed critical damage to the brain, evidence of clotting, and after a period of time it was deemed by the specialist care team that no recovery would take place and artificial support was withdrawn allowing Rachel to peacefully pass away.

From the 12th April this was the start of my journey as a single dad, however I would say for a period of time, with a lot of help from a few close friends, we were getting through the days and doing what needed to be done. During this same period, my business also struggled, and eventually had to close down too.

The weight of suddenly being solely responsible for Sam was quite overwhelming for a period of time, that daunting feeling that his future was now resting just with me, and not only that, suddenly without a business, and even managing household responsibilities. This weight however, although daunting, was also my focus and guiding light, used in a positive manner to find a path forward that allowed us to not just get by, but how to thrive and build a new life, full of happiness and with a sense of purpose.

I am not proud to say, I would have classified myself as a partly absent father, with things not always being easy at home, it was more convenient for me to throw myself into 100 hour working weeks than it was to tackle the issues at home. I am hoping that sharing this will allow others in the same position to realise you cannot hide from your issues or responsibilities quite so easy. This made the sudden transition, and the burden of making all the decisions, even harder to wrap my head around.

One of the most important things for a single dad to remember is that it's okay to ask for help. There is no shame in reaching out to friends, family, or support groups for assistance. For me this was mainly a very small group of friends that were always there to meet or chat, and most importantly to dish out hugs when they were most needed! 

One interesting thing I have discovered is that there is very little resource available for single dads, nearly all groups and articles are geared towards single mums, just search google images for “single parent” and you will see nearly all mums appear.

For Sam and I, and our next chapter, well that begins now, and we will share Sam’s Journey with you and hope to inspire others, and provide support where we can. I took the decision to take Sam out of the Special Needs Education system, after all it wasn't particularly special or providing an education, we are going to home educate, travel lots, and eventually build an off-grid home when we return - that is the plan at least, let’s see where the journey takes us.

Whatever happens we will do it with a new found bond between us, we will have fun, we will make memories, and we will always take the memory of Rachel with us, and never allow Sam to forget who his mum was.