It's Not Raining, Daddy, It's Happy

Ben Brooks-Dutton's wife—the great love of his life—was knocked down and killed by a car as he walked beside her, pushing their two-year-old son in his stroller. Life changed forever. Suddenly Ben was a widower deep in shock, left to raise their bewildered child alone. In the aftermath Ben searched for guidance from men in similar situations, but it appeared that young widowed fathers don't talk. Well-meaning loved ones admired his strength. The unwritten rule seemed to be to "shut up, man up, and hide your pain." Lost, broken, and afraid of the future, two months after his wife Desreen's death, Ben started a blog with the aim of rejecting outdated conventions of grief and instead opening up about his experiences. Within months, Life as a Widower had received a million hits and had started an all-too-often hushed conversation about the reality of loss and grief. This is the story of a man and a child who lost the woman they so dearly love and what happened in the year that followed. Ben describes the conflicting emotions that come from facing grief head on. He rages against the clichés used around loss, and shows the strange and cruel ways in which grief can take hold. He also charts what it means to become a sole parent to a child who has lost their mother and cannot yet understand the meaning of death. Through the shock and sadness shine moments of hope and insight. So much of what Ben learns comes from watching his son struggle, survive, and live, as children do, from moment to moment where hurt can turn to happiness and anger can turn to joy. This is a story of loss, heartbreak, and courage. At its heart is the funny, infuriating, and life affirming relationship between a father and son, and their ongoing love for an extraordinary woman.

Benjamin Brooks-Dutton embarked on a career in public relations, which lasted 12 years and saw him take charge as the managing director of a large PR firm in London in 2012. Just months later his wife was hit and killed by a car, leaving Ben a widower and sole parent to their two-year-old son. Ben started a blog called Life as a Widower two months after his wife's death in a bid to help others by opening up about his own experiences of grief. Within months the blog amassed a worldwide audience united in grief and became the precursor for Ben's first book.