One unpleasant side effect of losing a parent is worrying about the other parent. Are they eating enough and sleeping enough? Are they lonely, and spending too much time at home with their grouchy cat? In addition to all of this worry, another unpleasant side effect no one explained to me was standing by as the parent you’re so worried about starts going on dates.
My mother Cindy died from colon cancer complications in November 2018, after nearly four years of chemotherapy. During that time, my dad Dean was her devoted caretaker, driving her to doctor’s appointments, making sure she was taking medications, and giving her ketogenic foods, which she hated. My mom was a steak-and-potatoes girl. She despised kale, but my dad tried anything he could to make her well.
They were teenage sweethearts who married in 1970. Their relationship wasn’t perfect, because no relationship is, but their love was true. So two years after my mom’s death, when I found out that my dad was just starting to go on dates, my sisters and I were not remotely prepared for this new phase of life.
It didn’t help that the way I found out he was starting to date was that my youngest sister Kathryn called me in a panic one day to tell me our dad was using Tinder. You know, the app that’s more suited to 25-year-olds than a 70-year-old widower? That’s the one. Kathryn’s panic transferred over to me, and then to our sister Amy. Together, we had an intervention with our father, and demanded that he get off Tinder at once and find a way to date that was more suited to a sweet grandfather.
In my dad’s defence, he said Tinder was the only app he’d ever heard of, so he figured that was what everyone used, regardless of age. Once my sisters and I calmed down (slightly), we realised that whether we liked it or not, we were going to have to help him navigate this strange new world of dating, one that he hadn’t been a part of since about 1969, when he was going on dates with our mum.
The first time this possibility came up, it was only a few months after our mother died. A family friend approached Kathryn and said she had a woman she’d like to introduce to our father. Since it was so soon after our mom passed away, we said absolutely not, and never even brought it up with our father. It might sound like we were being ridiculous, but when you’re experiencing deep grief, it’s perfectly fine to act ridiculous, unhinged, confused, enraged, sad, and nonsensical, often all at once. We were just trying to exist in a world without our mom. It was not easy.
Since my father is healthy, young at heart and social, I knew it would be good for him to eventually go out with women. Once I accepted this fact, I sat down with him and asked him to show me his dating profile. I helped him choose photos and told him that he needed to write more in his bio so people wouldn’t think he was a reticent serial killer. We scrolled through profiles together and, once he got out there, he started telling me about his dates. It wasn’t – and isn’t – easy, but it has definitely gotten easier. It’s also a new way for us to bond.
I spoke to grief counsellors and therapists when I was doing research for my book, So Sorry For Your Loss: How I Learned To Live With Grief, and Other Grave Concerns, and one of them said that we are all five years old in our minds when it comes to family. When it came to our dad dating, my sisters and I definitely reverted to our five-year-old selves, panicking and throwing fits if we thought a woman didn’t seem self-sufficient, kind, respectful, funny, and pretty much perfect.
I did have to teach him a few things about dating in the 21st century, like explaining what ghosting is and telling him it’s something he shouldn’t do, or reminding him not to be 20 minutes late for a date (he’s always late). He still misses our mom, and my sister Jackie who died in 2021. He’s been through more grief than anyone should have to endure, and so instead of fighting against his dating, I’ve come to accept it.
The last thing I want is for my father to be lonely. I want him to stick around for many years to come, and if that means he goes to dinner with women or even one day starts a relationship, that’s the way it will be.
Learning to live with any sort of grief is a battle, and accepting a parent starting to date after loss might not be a smooth ride at first. Like anything in grief, it’s a process, one that might feel horrible one minute, and not so bad the next. The best thing you can do is hang on for the ride, be kind to yourself, and help your parent scroll through apps if that brings them a little bit of happiness. At this stage, I’ll scroll along with my dad for as long as he likes, and through it all, we’ll think about my mom.
Dina Gachman is a Pulitzer Center Grantee and an award-winning journalist. Her book So Sorry For Your Loss: How I Learned To Live With Grief, and Other Grave Concerns, is out now in paperback, published by Union Square & Co at £11.99
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