What if your father died tomorrow and your mother had to plan the funeral, manage the family finances, find legal and financial paperwork for the next eighteen months and take care of the house – alone? Could she do it all? Who would she turn to for help? How would your life change? Many sons and daughters don’t expect all the changes that the loss of a parent and a newly widowed parent creates. After the death of one parent, adult children-mostly the Gen X and Baby Boomers ages 29-59-years-old-are then required to help their newly widowed mother or father while they struggle to keep their own careers, relationships, children, and personal lives stabilized. Busy with work and families of their own, these adults don’t have a lot of time to research or find helpful resources to outsource questions or tasks for their parent. Numerous books about grief and death have been written for widows or widowers, but few address the modern effects on adult sons and daughters who end up making many decisions or advise their newly widowed parent.

Grief and loss resources for these sons and daughters are everywhere, but no one – until now, that is – has compiled the more than five hundred resources to assist adults with a newly widowed parent in one place. The new book, Mom Minus Dad: The Essential Resource Guide for Busy Adults with a Newly Widowed Parent, provides practical advice on ten major parent loss topics along with more than 500 valuable resources to assist those twelve million sons and daughters who lose a parent every year. Each section provides online and other resources and simple practical solutions to common problems – from finding affordable counseling to building new budgets for the widowed parent to managing changing family dynamics. Each chapter reveals ideas, relevant insights from the author’s personal experience, questions to consider, and additional resources to find specific assistance. This is a reference guide grievers will refer to during the year after loss and years beyond.

Jamieson Haverkampf, a certified Grief Recovery Specialist, gleaned intimate knowledge of balancing her own life with a newly widowed parent. The author and her sister assisted her fifty-six-year-old widowed mother in bouncing back into life after the early unpredicted loss of her father to cancer. Mom Minus Dad is available at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, andmomminusdad.com.
–Atlanta Hospital News

When one parent dies, the children have to quickly learn to deal with their own grief as well as assist their surviving parent. Written by a woman whose father died unexpectedly of cancer, Mom Minus Dad is packed with information that will help families provide support to a newly widowed parent. The book discusses the many aspects of dealing with a parent’s death and is written in an easy-to-read, conversational style. The author, Jamieson Haverkampf, and her sister had to help their mother manage her affairs after their father died. Haverkampf uses her experience to explain how to handle the first weeks after loss, build a support team, take care of yourself, handle paperwork and finances, and help the parent relocate, if that is necessary. The book also provides advice on how to move forward, handle holidays and anniversaries, deal with the change in family dynamics, and find a community. Interspersed in each chapter are stories from the author’s experience. Mom Minus Dad contains an impressive 113 pages of resources covering almost every topic a child might encounter while helping a grieving parent, including low-cost airfares available to the bereaved, food delivery services, state-by-state bereavement support groups, bookkeepers, moving companies, online communities, and legal issues. The book also includes checklists and worksheets to assist with every task.
–Elderlawanswers.com

A widowed person’s emotional and physical health, as well as that of his or her adult children, is often overlooked. Paperwork, legal confusion, and stressful family dynamics delay the grieving process, leaving everyone exhausted and struggling to cope. Mom Minus Dad hopes to keep this from happening.This book contains the levelheaded advice and essential resources adults need to navigate such a difficult time. Jamieson, whose own mother was widowed at 56, helps family members adjust to a new lifestyle and plan everything from finances to vacations to retirement. Clear, organized sections are packed with facts, Web sites, and first-hand knowledge, not only making day-to-day decisions more manageable, but helping you to find time for fun and pleasure again.
–Ladies Who Launch Online Magazine

Just looking through the new book Mom Minus Dad: The Essential Resource Guide for Busy Adults with a newly Widowed Parent by Jamieson haverkampf (Blooming Women Press, $14.95) can be overwhelming. The author provides information on just about every aspect that a widow or widower and their adult children have to face after a death. This is not a book on how to grieve, but the nuts and bolts for adults children dealing with now having to be your parent’s support system as they adjust to a new life.

In between her own story of losing a father, the author proves solid resources available to make things easier for the rest of us. The hours she and her sister spent researching the internet for their mother is now in one informative book.

An excerpt from the book: “When he was alive, Dad did not discuss the majority of my parents’ financial and legal issues with my sister and me either. He also did not leave a note in a safety deposit box or in a file outlining who to call and where specific files were located if something happened to him. We looked for anything that resembled an account. We reviewed old copies of Dad’s resume to see if any companies he worked for in the past might be holding an unredeemed pension benefit. We sorted through files and make a list of people to call. Dad’s paper files went back 30 years.”

Jamieson and her sister Ivy both lived in the Bay area when their father died. They lost income every time they went to Virginia to help their mother which added to their already high stress level. This is the book to read before you’re faced with grieving and having to take care of details you may have never considered.
–Fresno Bee’s CentralValleyMoms.com

Recently I had a conversation with a church member whose mother is facing serious medical decisions. Understandably, the member was concerned about her mother and the situation was clearly taking an emotional toll. Just a few weeks before, I sat with the same member, along with her daughter and son-in-law, as her 2-year-old granddaughter had the third open-heart surgery of her young life. This member illustrates the challenges faced by the “Sandwich Generation.” This relatively new term refers to those “sandwiched” between the responsibilities of careers and caring for their own children, and of caring for aging parents.

With many senior citizens living well into their 80′s and 90′s, a growing number of adult children find themselves assuming significant caregiving responsibilities for parents. Often this caregiving is done long-distance as families are scattered across the country. Each situation is unique, but the adult children inevitably assume increased responsibility for their parents. For example, when one parent dies, the caregiving responsibilities may increase dramatically as the surviving parent grieves and needs to make the transition to being a widow or widower. While many resources exist for the widow or widower, few resources exist for the “sandwiched” children going through this experience.

If you or someone you know is in this “Sandwich Generation,” I would suggest two helpful resources. Mom Minus Dad (Blooming Women Press, 2008) is a resource book by Jamieson Haverkampf intended for the children of a surviving parent. Ms. Haverkampf’s book is born out of her personal experience of her father’s death in 2001 and the transition she and her sister Ivy had to help her mother through. While trying to keep their own businesses afloat and deal with their own grief, the sisters struggled from their home in San Francisco to support their mother in Virginia through many changes in her life. Haverkampf admits candidly that she battled exhaustion and depression at times. Mom Minus Dad is essentially divided into two parts. The first part discusses ten parent-loss issues. Practical suggestions are offered and the impact of grief is expressed honestly. Issues include: the first weeks after loss, building your support team, taking care of yourself, paperwork and finances, technology time-savers, moving forward, holidays and anniversaries, moving mom or dad, changes in family dynamics, and community. The second part of the book includes more extensive, categorized, resource lists of relevant professional organizations, national associations, website’s, etc. In all, more than 500 resources are listed and explained.

A second book you may find helpful is How to Care for Aging Parents by Virginia Morris (Workman Publishing, 2004). This book is heavier on practical advice and lighter on resource information than Haverkampf’s. How to Care for Aging Parents includes tips for managing your daily relationship with your aging parent, tips for managing you parent’s medical situation as well as for spotting early-stage medical problems. Financial and legal matters are also discussed.

Both books are valuable for helping the reader proactively anticipate caregiving issues likely to be encountered. Each reader will need to customize the advice given for his/her particular setting and situation. Pastor’s and Stephen’s Ministers may find these books to be useful resources for sharing with those who suddenly find themselves caring for a parent. Let us not forget that the Fifth Commandments is “Honor your father and mother.”- Rev. Chris Barbieri is the associate pastor at Sandy Springs, Ga, UMC.
–Wesleyan Christian Advocate Newspaper

TESTIMONIALS

Mom Minus Dad is a good, steady companion for anyone facing the inevitable life transition of the death of a parent and the ensuing grief. Jamieson has written a book filled with practical information and gentle wisdom for coping with the vast and easily overwhelming details and experiences left to the surviving family members when a parent dies. Using skillfully shared personal experience, she implicitly and explicitly illustrates presence, compassion, and self-care as containers for effectively managing the myriad tasks and stages following a parent’s death. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone coping with or anticipating the death of a parent.—Jeffrey Brantley MD, director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at Duke Integrative Medicine and author of Calming Your Anxious Mind, and coauthor of the Five Good Minutes book series