Like Rio, I am now mum and dad to our children
Ben Westwood lost his wife to breast cancercer when she was 35. Like Rio Ferdinand, hee struggled with both grief and parenting
Ihad followed Rio Ferdinand’s career for many years as a football fan. He was always a brave player on the pitch but I never imagined he would have to face the same tragedy as I did, off it. Like Ferdinand, breast cancer took my wife and turned me into a single father in my thirties.
At first, we hoped to have caught the cancer in time: after Carolina received her biopsy results in October 2011, one month shy of her 36th birthday, she went through an operation, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
But although she fought with bravery and optimism it was a viciously aggressive form of the disease and spread to her brain the following year. She died in June 2013, aged just 37 – leaving me trying to work out how to be both Mum and Dad to our children, Jake and Isabella, just seven and five. I realise I was lucky in some ways, compared with Ferdinand. Carolina’s battle was over 18 months from the first diagnosis, while his wife, Rebecca, had barely two months. Time was precious but at least gave me a chance to try to prepare. I asked Carolina to write notes to me and the children, which have been invaluable. We renewed our wedding vows and made last family outings. It didn’t make things easier at the time but I realised afterwards how important it was for us to go through these rituals. Grief has no rules but many stages: denial, anger, guilt, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and though I am a few years further down the road than Rio, there’s no obvious end to the process. What you need most is time, but as a single parent that is exactly what I didn’t have – running the household, cooking meals, school runs, not to mention holding down a job as a lecturer at the University of Brighton, to pay the bills.
A year after Carolina died, I wasn’t coping and started noticing the ground beneath me shaking. After several days of worrying about my house’s foundations and calling up perplexed neighbours, I realised I was experiencing such high levels of stress that I was the one shaking, not the floor. I needed to get help.
I sought therapy from grief specialists Cruse, which helped me to talk about my feelings, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy through the local authority, which helped me to improve my handling of stress. My children also received counselling at school, both one-onone and in group sessions. There was so much that we needed to address.
In Ferdinand’s BBC documentary, which airs tonight and in which he explores ways of managing grief, he admits that he found it “worrying” that he didn’t have all the answers for his three children: sons Lorenz, 11, and Tate, nine, and daughter Tia, five.
My children, too, wanted answers, as to why and how such an awful thing could happen, but there were none. Jake, now 11, hardly cried in the months after Carolina’s death, instead he seemed to be feeling guilty, a common feeling for bereaved children, while Isabella, now nine, was openly devastated at her loss.
I cried in front of them on several occasions, deciding it was important for them to see that I shared their pain. But children react so differently from adults – one moment they may be crying uncontrollably and half an hour later they are running around with friends.
Ferdinand said as much: that he didn’t know how to speak to the children, he didn’t know what buttons to push. He’d been starting conversations with them to get to their feelings. But they’d just shut down and walk away.
The turning point, for him, was hitting on the idea of a “memory jar”, where they could keep memories of their mother written on pieces of paper, and it triggered an outpouring. He said he could hear the joy in their voices – he could hear they wanted to speak about it.
We don’t have a jar, as such, but keeping Carolina’s memory alive has been vital. For the first few months after she died, we read the notes she had left to each of us every night, and now the children keep them in their bedside drawers. We had a memorial seat made in the park, we made photo albums and always light a candle on her birthday. We also talk about the good times. I regularly
‘Grief has no rules – and there’s no obvious end to the process’
tell the kids about their mum’s likes and hobbies, and especially if they have inherited some of her traits, in particular her winning smile and her artistic skills.
Mother’s Day has just passed, which is a relief as it is the day of the year we dread most. At first, we bought flowers for Carolina, but it upset Isabella, in particular, to see every other family celebrating, so we did our best to ignore this one altogether, and spent it on the beach.
A pivotal moment for Ferdinand appears to be meeting golfer Darren Clarke, whose wife, Heather, had died of cancer in 2006, and who told him that there is life after a loved one’s death – however unlikely that may feel. Clarke, who is now married to model agency boss Alison Campbell, admits to Rio that he didn’t think he would ever be this happy again, telling him: “Life goes on. Life has to go on.”
Carolina openly told me that she wanted me to find someone, as long as they were good for the children. But we were married for 14 years – hard for it not to feel like cheating. I’ve dipped my toe in the bemusing world of online dating and while my situation is too complex for many women, others are sympathetic and don’t see it as an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps I’m not too different from the millions of single parents out there. I certainly connect best with other single parents, so there is hope.
Experts say that grief is never linear – you don’t simply work through the stages, come out of the woods and move on; it’s far more complex than that. Talking to BBC Radio 5 live about how long it can take to recover, Ferdinand agreed: “One person may take six months. Another person may take 10 years. There isn’t a time when you can say, ‘Yeah I’m over it’. Putting a number on it is the wrong thing to do.”
Four years on, I’m not sure where I am in the process but my feelings have moved beyond inconsolable sadness over the past to trying to deal with the present and future. I notice that my emotions seem to mirror those of my children. When they are doing well, I feel better, too.
I’ve also realised, as perhaps Rio Ferdinand did in making this documentary, that communication and expression are the most effective ways for me to move forward. I’ve written extensively about being a widowed single father, but in the past year I’ve channelled my feelings through music. A recording studio has proved to be far more effective than a therapist’s couch, because I am creating something permanent to share with people. When I finished my album, I worked with Widowed & Young (widowedandyoung.org.uk) and Winston’s Wish (winstonswish.org.uk) – charities that help younger widowed people and bereaved children – to launch it on iTunes.
I’ve been overwhelmed by the support I have received, in particular from other widowed parents. Carolina brought light to so many people’s lives that it helps to think the music I made in memory of her might do the same.
My children will always miss their mum, as Rio’s will theirs, but time and healing have made it easier to bear the pain, focus on the good memories and look forward. Perhaps Carolina herself expressed it best, in a note to me: “Be strong, be patient, be positive, and be happy.” Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad is on BBC One tonight at 9pm Ben Westwood’s Sing Like Your Life Depends On It is available on iTunes or benwestwoodmusic.com
‘Mother’s Day has passed, which is a relief. It’s the day we dread the most’