A widower writes: 'I regret how my wife and I spent our final hours together.'

Dear Tom and Lottie,

A long time ago, before you were both born, and before you could even FaceTime, I travelled a lot for work. And I mean a lot. 

Mummy and I were in our late 20s and 30s, and at times we both thought work was more than a job; we thought it was who we were, not what we did. Like so many, we had worked hard to get some good opportunities.

There were times when I travelled over 150 nights a year. And Mummy, well she was busy doing the lawyer thing in Canberra, then Sydney, then London, and then Canberra again. Climbing the ladder, without stepping on any toes in the process. Which is a tricky thing for a lawyer to do, unless your humble and respectful that is.

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And while I was away trying to fend off South African journalists, Wallaby forwards in court sessions, or watching swimmers break world records in Rome, Dubai or down town Hobart, Mummy was working away, sometimes pulling all-nighters, definitely working weekends, and then socialising with work friends, many of who became good friends. Friends who still keep in touch and check in on you guys, which is very nice. 

I missed a friend's wedding because of a work ‘drama’. I spent way too many weekends, and long weekends, on the phone dealing with more ‘drama’.

Skateboard drama, Sunday paper drama, donkey drama, drugs in sport drama. All sorts of drama, that once you leave it all behind, you soon release just how ‘undramatic’ it really was.

The saddest thing for me is that I’ll never get that ‘drama’ time back. Time that should have been spent together with your Mummy, sans said drama.

When you’re in it, the drama, the travel, there isn’t much time to think about what you’re missing out on back home. Little time to reflect, and little time to realise there is more to life than work.

I’ve experienced a lot in life because of work. Meeting Mr T, meeting a winner of a Nobel peace prize and seeing the Pope from the Spanish steps in Rome, but none of that means work should dictate life, or at least take priority over life.

So in more recent times I’ve started to re think the whole ‘work life balance’ thing, reassess the best way to approach it all, and reshuffle the words to see it more like ‘life work balance’.

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Why? Because ones life’s work - one’s accomplishments, achievements and accolades - has very little to do with their actual work. There aren’t many headstones in the world that list a person's CV, and as we saw when hundreds of people came to say goodbye to Mummy, the only real reference to her actual job and work was that it enabled so many friendships.

Among many things, Mummy was very good at her job. And while it’s no secret that she didn’t ‘love’ the law and would much rather have been a florist, the facts are she was well respected, quietly confident and committed. Maybe too committed, but maybe we’re all guilty of that until we see, or experience something that helps us get the 'life work' order right.

Sadly, in the hours before Mummy died and in one of the final moments where she was pain free and able to communicate with me, she and I were both thinking about work, and believe it or not, doing work. Of course, neither of us knew what was going to happen and how things would escalate so quickly, but regardless, work should not have been front-of-mind at that moment.

For months I was kicking myself that I was finalising a report at 3am at her hospital bedside while she rested, when I should have been more present. When I should have been ‘with’ her. It ate away at me for a long time, until I checked her phone one day and remembered that she’d done something similar at around the same time while she was lying there.

She had dictated an email to me, to send to her boss to wrap up a piece of work so she could get it out of head, before the weekend ahead. The weekend where she thought she’d be at home celebrating your third birthday, Tommy. Finding that email, some six months after she had died, also provided me with some comfort that she wasn’t lying there thinking the worst, and wasn’t lying there in too much pain.

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But still, work was getting in the way of life for her, and for me… and it shouldn’t have.

Not then, and not ever really.

Of course, we need to work to have a life. But work should not take over life, or for me, in this instance, take away some remaining hours of a life.

In the months after Mummy died I was working out what to do with my own work situation.

I was working out what to do about work… and life, like we all were.

So about three months after Mummy died, I tried to go back a few days a week and that didn’t really work for me, and it didn’t work for you guys either.

I wasn’t ready for it, and found it very hard to concentrate on anything. So in May 2015 I pulled the pin on my career completely and focused my attention on you two, and getting through that winter, and the grief.

It was the best thing I could have ever done.

For the next year or so I hardly worked - well in the paid employment sense that is - because discovering how to be a solo parent was a new type of work all together. And while working through grief could be considered a full time job in itself, there were times even that had to be put to one side so I could work out what the hell I was doing with you two.

We worked it out, and it worked. And it still does.

We ate a few baked beans, but we also had some fantastic support from family and very close friends, and some amazing experiences together.

Of all the amazing things I’ve been lucky to experience with work over the years, none of it compares to spending time as a team of three when we most needed to.

Time when I wasn’t distracted by the phone, by an impending email, or by a report that needed to be finished at 3am. Time when my own little family, you two, needed me most.

Work is just a job. Being a Daddy is forever and for me that’s not work… it’s life. And a lovely little life at that.

Tommy I love you giraffe and Potts, I love you Lotts.

#TheDaddyLetters

PS. Mummy would have made a great florist… though I’m not sure about the early starts.

This post was originally published by #TheDaddyLetters. You can follow Lach's adventures on Instagram and Facebook.

Do you find it hard to find the elusive 'work/life balance'? Tell us what you think in the comments!