When A Son Loses His Father

It was a client meeting I will never forget.

In late 2008, I was sitting in front of a widow who seven months earlier had lost her husband to cancer. If the distraught figure in front of me wasn’t enough, the life lesson I was about learn would be impossible to forget.

Put simply…

What does a son lose when he loses his father?

Amanda and Allan were happily married and the proud parents of two beautiful boys aged 9 and 11. Coming from very modest backgrounds, they wanted to give their boys everything they couldn’t have as children.

Not surprisingly, both boys absolutely idolised their Dad. He was both their rock and their light house. He could cheer them up and calm down in a heartbeat. They adored him.

When Allan was diagnosed with cancer, Amanda was forty and working as an accountant on $80,000 pa. Allan was forty two and had just started up his own marketing business. Before this, he was working for a firm on a salary of $250,000 pa.

A few years earlier, they moved into a bigger home. They took out a sizeable mortgage to do some much needed renovations and had every expectation of paying it off soon.

Thanks to Allan’s previous salary they had accumulated a bit of equity in their home. As a result, he took out a line of credit of $200,000 to help get his business started. Unfortunately they over capitalised on the reno’s and were now carrying more debt than anticipated.

Finally, after much prodding and probing, Allan agreed to get some insurance cover because of the debt levels.

But it was too late…

On the very day Allan submitted his application forms to get $1,000,000 worth of life cover plus some income protection he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. No word of a lie.

Allan died 10 months later. By this stage, most of the $200,000 had been spent on the business as well as school fees, mortgage repayments and medical bills.

The GFC was now beginning to bite hard and the property market went dead quiet. Consequently it was impossible to sell their house at the original purchase price.

Not surprisingly, Amanda could no longer service the debt and the bank was about to repossess their house. To top it off, the school could no longer offer her anymore scholarship.

When I met with her, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She had lost her appetite and the idea of a full night’s sleep was nothing more than a wish. By now the black dog had become her new soul mate. The poor woman was a wreck!

So what did the boys lose when they lost their Dad?

They lost their Mum.

Because Amanda was so consumed with worry about how to survive, she couldn’t be there for her boys, let alone begin the grieving process. At a time when they needed a double dose of love and security, they were denied both.

The loss of their father’s love and security should have been the extent of it. Instead it was the beginning of endless “if only’s”.

You might also want to ponder this question. How do you think Allan would have felt if he saw the hardship his family had to endure post his passing?

Illness doesn’t discriminate. Don’t let it happen to you.

Have a good week and get it sorted!

Ps Before Christmas I also wrote a Moowsletter titled ‘Who’s In Your Will’? Not for my sake, but for yours.

Get my drift?

Foot note – I have changed the names and occupations to protect the privacy of the above family.