How to Turn Loss Into Strength as a Single Parent

How do we find strength and hope amidst unexpected, unimaginable losses in our lives? Today I’m honored to welcome Sarah Gallagher to the blog as she helps us learn how to turn loss into strength through her beautiful story of resilience and hope.

By Sarah Gallagher

When my son was 2 1/2 years old, his father suddenly died, leaving me a widowed parent. It was unbelievably devastating. He was my soulmate. We still had so many unfinished plans, including our intention to have another child. Now, I had to figure out how to turn loss into strength as a single parent. I needed to find the intersection of grief and love.

We were planning on calling our kids “The Danger Squad.” Tristan, as the eldest, was to be named after the best romantic knight ever. Alexander/ra was to be named after the ancient conqueror. Both kids were to have the same middle name of Danger.

My husband gone, our dream of having two children seemed dead too.

Life Changed Instantly

The weekend when he was in the hospital in an induced coma, an army of friends stormed my apartment to keep vigil with me – or maybe to keep vigil ON me. There was a lot of booze, and a lot of stories and laughter in between the crying. They cried – I couldn’t. I was in shock, unable to feel much of anything. Just grateful that there was this army of stalwart soldiers to keep me upright.

As it became apparent that he would not recover from his cardiac arrest, that he was truly brain-dead, these friends rallied. They started a GoFundMe account and opened a Food Train to deliver handmade meals for my son and I. They were there at the hospital when we turned off the machines, staying by me as I held my husband’s cold hand, whispering how proud I was of him. I could hear them crying in the background, when all I could be aware of was the fullness of how much I loved my soulmate.

After that, life felt like a series of motions. 

I went about doing all of the administrative work death requires. His belongings were all assembled and categorized; kept, dumped or donated. I bundled up the clothes that screamed his style, smelt them deeply, and then stuffed them into a bag to keep for later – it was important to me to align myself to this new life, even though my heart was breaking. I couldn’t break down, I needed to adapt to this whole life change. And accept who I was now.

As a widowed, solo parent, I needed to learn how to turn loss into strength.

Grieving While Living Takes Strength

They say that the first year is the hardest. That’s true. But what they don’t tell you is that every morning you wake up to the same nightmare. That you’ll be doing something completely mundane and the night where you found them comes flooding back in great, vivid detail and you have to stop to let the wave rush through you. Every day is dull, and painful, and there are tears in the most inappropriate times.

However, I couldn’t let these waves of grief consume me, because even though I had lost the love of my life, my son had lost his father. And that was so much worse.

My little man needed me more than ever. With his father gone, my son now relied on me to be his everything. All Knight knew was that the father who had read him to sleep the night before was gone. Actually, I’m not even sure if he remembers that much. After all, he was only 2 1/2 and had just started bonding with his father now that he was past the baby stage. Regardless, his world was also turned upside down whether he realized it or not, and it was up to me to ensure that he wouldn’t be traumatized by it.

Intersecting Grief With Love

So, the day after his father died, I took him out to the swings where his father had just taught him how to balance on the big kid swings. I have a picture where Knight is overjoyed at flying, his father in his camo jacket, big floppy hat and sunglasses, pushing him from behind. Back to the present time, my son is just as delighted, unaware of the space behind him. We go and get Slurpees from the near-by 7-11, and make faces at each other in the mirror, showing off our blue tongues. I look happy in that picture, but I’m mourning inside.

For the next year, I focus on him – the other love of my life. I take him out of his home-care, and register him for preschool. We get a membership for the Science Center, and we visit every second weekend. We visit family and friends, so there’s still that sense of comradery which is good for both of us. I sign him up for every activity where I think there might be a male coach.

As I watch him play soccer – that is, run around like a maniac after the ball – I let myself go. I open up that steam valve, and let the feelings come. Not all at once. Just enough to acknowledge their presence. I watch my son play ball, and love him as fiercely as I grieve his father. I learn how to intersect grief and love together.

Turning Loss Into Strength

It took a year to rebuild my life as a single, widowed parent. Throughout the year, I was contemplating something huge, but I didn’t want to make any rash decisions. Not in the first year. Not for something as life altering as this.

So I waited, and lived my new life with my son, and thought harder. And realized that this was something that was stronger than death.

After that first death anniversary, I made up my mind. I was determined to go forward and have the second child Myke and I had planned. On my own. I didn’t want my dream to die with Myke, and I didn’t want Knight to ever be alone.

I’d gone through so much in my life already, and was stronger for it. When Myke died, he helped me learn two very important things: that I did indeed have a rod of steel inside me, and that loving life is the most important lesson of all. I realized that I would never regret having another child, but I would always regret if I hadn’t tried.

The next year was a whirlwind of activity, including figuring out where we were going to live as our rental house was being sold out from under us. I was the only one working for a paycheck now, and Knight was about to go to Kindergarten in the fall. We’d managed to secure a housesitting gig through an old co-worker for the summer. And I was going into the fertility clinic every other day to monitor my cycle by drawing blood samples. It was a VERY busy time.

During my rental hunt, I got the news that I was pregnant after my first IUI; this just clinched my steadfastness that this child was meant to be.

As she developed in my uterus, I decided to amend her intended name a little to Alyxandra – the Y in tribute to her Sky Daddy. 

The Days Are Full

Now I’ve embraced my life as a widowed, solo parent to two spirited kids. My life with my little family is so full, so busy, so full of love…so exhausting…but I have absolutely no regrets in my decision to raise two kids on my own. My Knight and my Warrior. My empathetic dragon slayer, and my fierce queen. I tell stories of their Sky Daddy whenever life inspires them. I live harder, and with more passion than ever, because I myself am a warrior and a compassionate knight, who has learned how to temper grief into strength and wants to help others.

Those friends who stood by me when Myke was in the hospital on the cusp of death, and I deadened to the world, they kept me up. I would have not been able to find my footing if it wasn’t for them keeping me steady. They helped me turn my loss into strength. Now that I’ve found the key to this strength is discovering my intersection of grief and love, my focus is to help others find theirs.

My goal is to tell our continuing story to help other widow/ers, single or only parents – any parent having a bad day – find hope and inspiration again. I want to help guide you along your path of grief, through the shadows and pain to a better, brighter life. To help you discover how to turn loss into strength as a single parent. How to intersect grief with love. To help you live with death, while embracing life.

It’s a unique path that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but as death will inevitably shatter lives, I want to be there to help pick up the pieces.

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