Rebecca Ferdinand’s death after a short battle with cancer puts the focus on how young widowed fathers often struggle to cope when tragedy strikes
By Rob Kemp |9:10AM BST 06 May 2015
As Rio Ferdinand announced his wife Rebecca’s untimely death from cancer on Friday, he described the loss of his "wife and soul mate".
For young fathers in Rio Ferdinand’s situation the taking away of their closest friend and confidant is one of the hardest elements to come to terms with.
It’s the loss of that shoulder to cry upon, the most comforting one of all, when it’s needed most. Who else do you turn to? Rebecca would most likely have been the only person Rio has ever really opened up to. His wife would have seen him at his happiest and his saddest. She’d have been the key comfort and support he’d needed when things had gone wrong in his life.
The difference in men and women when it comes to the support networks we develop is never so apparent than at times like this.
It’s not fair to say it’s harder for fathers than mothers to cope when they lose their partner. But the work carried out by the likes of WAY Widowed and Young (a charity for bereaved men and women aged under 50) suggest that men often find it harder to ask for the help they need at this time.
“Telling my little girl, Lucia, who was three at the time, that ‘doctors had tried to fix her mummy but were unable to do so’ was about as difficult a job as a dad can do,” explains Paul Verrico, who lost his wife Anna – mother of their two children – to the same aggressive form of breast cancer as claimed the life of Rebecca Ferdinand. Anna died in 2013, aged just 33.
• Rio Ferdinand's wife dies after short cancer battle
The impact of such loss can really hit home as a widowed dad attempts to make life as ‘normal’ as possible again for his children. “After a couple of days had subsided and we planned Anna’s funeral, Lucia said she wanted a pony tail, but I had no idea how to do that properly,” Paul explains.
It’s estimated that there are around 36,000 widowed men under the age of 50 in the UK – but because the data covers only those people who are formally married it's impossible to know the exact number. Whilst life-expectancy, health awareness and risk-taking mean women are statistically more likely to be widowed than men – it’s more often those bereaved fathers who are more in need of practical parenting advice and suppor.