Memories of a mother

I would be drawn into their conflicts.

I grew up with a demonised view of my father; there was a lot of eggshell-treading in a climate of fear.

At the age of 21, I met Rachel on a rainy December day in 1992 in Edinburgh. She was so beautiful, and way out of my league. I was an "Australian backpacker" (though born in ­Scotland, I'd moved overseas with my family at the age of three) and was working in a pub, a pub where Rachel ended up working too.

Ours was a long courtship - our first kiss didn't happen until the following summer and we ­eventually married in 1998, though it took several more years before we both felt ready to have children.

Conscious of not wanting to repeat my parents' mistakes, we spent a lot of time talking about all the attributes that we would want to instil in our children, how we would provide a rich and ­nourishing environment in which our son or daughter could grow up to be confident, independent and respectful of their opposite sex.

But still, the thought of being a father worried me deeply.

Then Samuel was born. And the moment I held him in my arms, an evolutionary hook embedded itself into my core. I was responsible for this infant's safety, comfort, nourishment and future - I was captivated. Of course, becoming a parent for the first time was not without its anxieties, but the concerns I had had in my 20s were gone. I felt an immense love and connection with Samuel and my goals in life were now orientated towards his development. When Lily was born two-and-a-half years later, Rachel and I couldn't have been happier.

For the next few years, our children's ­development and security was at the centre of our world. Then everything changed. In ­October 2012, at the age of 40, Rachel was diagnosed with advanced colorectal cancer. The children, then aged seven and four, knew their mother was poorly but didn't understand how serious the situation was and we worked hard at remaining positive and strong.

One day, three months after Rachel's diagnosis, we sat down with Samuel and Lily to explain that Mum had cancer; that the medicine was working at the moment; and that if anything happened there would always be someone to look after and love them.

Four days later, Rachel died suddenly of heart failure. She'd been admitted to hospital as a precaution around midday. At 9pm that evening I was by her bed, chatting and joking with her. At 9.50pm she had a little difficulty breathing, then her head flopped to the side. The hospital staff tried unsuccessfully to bring her back.

I knew from that moment on that Samuel and Lily's future rested with me. All the hopes Rachel had for our children, I had to carry on my own. How would I keep the memory of her alive for them? How would I compensate for Samuel and Lily not having a mother?

I arrived home just after 11pm. Everything felt surreal, yet strangely normal. The children were in bed. I told the friend who was babysitting what had happened, but there didn't seem any point in waking Samuel and Lily to shatter their world.

I spent the night on the couch and in the ­morning asked the children to come and sit next to me. I explained that their mother's heart had stopped working because it was beating too fast for too long and that she had died.

The sound of my son wailing in grief for his mum still haunts me. Four-year-old Lily's ­bewildered response was to ask, through tears: "Does that mean we get another mum?"

The "why" questions followed. I answered them as best I could. Rachel and I had always been frank and honest with the children. I didn't intend to change that now.

Then began the torturous process of letting people know. I would need to tell Rachel's parents, her sister, her boss and colleagues, her close friends and my own sister, who was widowed in 2005. The next several days were saturated with organising the funeral and figuring out how this "death" thing works.

Choosing flowers and a casket, sorting out who wants to say something at the funeral and of course supporting and looking after my children, whose lives had just been wrenched to a very strange new reality. I wanted to involve the children as much as possible without upsetting them, so decided to take them to the funeral, having tried to prepare them by showing them pictures of the hearse, the coffin and the dress Rachel would be wearing. It turned out to be a good day: Rachel's funeral was bright, funny … and heartbreaking.

I spent the following weeks cataloguing every photograph I had ever taken of my wife. Up went photos in multi-aperture frames all over the home. Into the digital photo frame went a couple of thousand pictures to flip over and over again. I trawled through all the videos, digitised all the home videos, the wedding videos, saving all of her texts on to the PC, keeping her Facebook page going and saving all of her emails. I was compelled to capture and save everything about Rachel for the children. I had to make sure they remembered her.

Over the following months I began to come to terms with my new way of life. Bereavement is not a temporary process; it is permanent. But practicalities have to be attended to. Fortunately, I have always been adept at housework and would never let Rachel iron my shirts (I only wanted one crease down each arm). As for the children, I'd been heavily involved with their upbringing from birth and had established a strong bond with them. For their sake I am very glad of this, since it meant the transition from having a mum and dad to just a dad has not been the huge upheaval it could have been had I devoted myself to a career that demanded 50-plus hours a week away from them. In that regard, I consider us lucky.

I feel as if bereavement has hitched a ride upon my soul but I have no destination in sight. The way I choose to relate with my travelling companion serves as an example to my children. I cry in front of them and I remind them of their mother's annoying traits (is stubbornness genetic?). It's important that they remember her as a real person, not an idealised being. As for the bad habits I have which used to annoy her, I consciously try to keep those in check: she'd be fuming to know that I would be irritating her less now than when she was alive!

I try to be pragmatic. During Rachel's illness, when my mind wandered towards negative thoughts, I would repeat to myself that if the worst were to happen I should "do the right thing, do the right thing, do the right thing". That mantra is at the fore of all my actions. I asked at my son's school about their policy on child bereavement, and although their initial response - "Well, what would you like us to do?" - was disheartening, to their credit, the school arranged for my son's teacher to attend a child bereavement course.

When my daughter started at school later that year I arranged for both of them to meet up with the deputy headteacher to do activities about their mum. It was important they had a "go to" person at school.

Sometimes, I'll say to the children, "Let's go see Mum" and off we go to visit Rachel's grave. When Mother's Day came, I asked their teachers to laminate the cards they made and we secured them at her grave on the Sunday. I am mindful that I don't want the children to be defined by their loss of their mother.

All the same, tears rolled down my cheeks recently as I watched Lily's dancing ­performance, thinking that Rachel should have been here to see her. I told her how proud her mum would have been of her, and we both had a cry on the way home in the car. It is hard to be supportive at Christmas and on the children's birthdays when I'm crumbling on the inside and all I want to do is pull the duvet over my head. It's hard to put aside my grief in order to support them in theirs. It's hard to differentiate between their various developmental stages and their issues with grief. It's hard not to let them get away with bad behaviour just because their mother has died.

But you just keep on trying to do the right thing. Fatherhood is about showing my son and daughter how to change plugs, how to climb trees, how to wash and iron their clothes and how to be kind, considerate and empathetic young people. How to look after themselves, how to treat others, how to look after money, how to keep themselves safe, how to work through their feelings, their arguments with their friends and how they can follow their dreams.

Rachel died in January 2013. Now nine and six, Samuel and Lily have both benefited from a bereavement programme provided by Richmond's Hope support service. But parents, too, sometimes need help. As a couple, Rachel and I were quite focused on raising the kids without asking for favours, and they rarely spent a night away from us.

As an only parent, I have come to realise that I had been trying too hard to be Super Dad. So when the opportunity came, I spent a couple of days away in the Highlands, recharging my batteries enough to return to my children a slightly happier father than before. I have another two nights planned in August, and I am looking forward to them.

I aim to be the best parent I can be to my kids, for them and for the memory of their mother who was my wife, my soulmate and my best friend of 21 years. I aim to fulfil our vision of raising our children to be happy and kind adults; that is my job.

I remind the children that what I do for them is what their mother and I had both discussed and agreed on.

When we found out Rachel's cancer was terminal, she said, "Don't let the kids forget about me", and those words still ring in my ears and I hope they always will.

Being a widowed parent to young children can be isolating and in my low points of not knowing what the future holds I reach out to a charity called WAY Widowed And Young. By providing the chance to communicate with people who are in a similar situation, WAY helps lift me out of the rut I often slip into.

My advice to any father who finds himself in a similar situation is to accept any and all help that is offered. And if no-one is offering, then get off your arse and ask for it. People around will slowly stop asking how you are, don't be offended: you may not want to be reminded of your loss all the time, however it's also comforting that your wellbeing is being thought of and expressed. But the rest of the world will move on, and others have their own lives to live.

Be honest with your children, share your emotions with them, tell them that you are angry instead of being just angry at them. Create a new social group for yourself with people who have had similar life experiences and most of all, learn to laugh.

I am so proud of my children. And there is nothing I want more than to spend a lazy

Father's Day morning with them, watching a movie and getting flaky bits of croissant and chocolate spread all over the place and not giving a hoot.