Remember, It’s OK: Loss of a Parent  

Losing a parent is heartbreaking. They brought you into the world and through your beginning years. They are part of your life, your fabric. They affect your self-esteem, how you make decisions, how you deal with relationships, children, work, choices. The loss of a parent can be complex in so many ways. In the second book in the Remember series, we help you deal with the loss of parents. Whether it was a warm relationship or one fraught with difficulty, we will help you find your way through your grief journey. 

The book weaves "Moments" (written in first person, like a personal diary entry of the griever's thoughts and feelings) into a spectrum of six colours,  as a road map forward.  Each "Moment” has a companion response of support which could be a friend, family member, colleague or therapist.  There are blank pages for expression and journaling, allowing you to document your own grief journey. 

This book is also for those who are supporting a friend or loved one after the loss of their parent. It will help you find the right words to say, when to speak no words at all, when to comfort, when to stand back. We all need to understand the grief journey with gentleness. You can now attempt to take on the role of “companion”, we show you how in these pages.

ISBN:  978-1-990336-32-4

“Such a revelatory experience, to read this book.  The format in which the gifted authors constructed the book (uncluttered, concise, the colours) so captured the multiplicity and purity of the loss of a parent; there could not be a more perfect expression of that grief.

Each reader will find specific writings in this book that resonate with them on a deeply personal level, and for me it was the sharing of thoughts and feelings by people who had a conflicted and “less than perfect” relationship with their parents.  

  We children of dysfunctional families do not receive any degree of comfort from most people when our parents die.  Well meaning people say “sorry for your loss, but you were not close to your mother or father, were you?”  As if our grief were not as intense and personal, as those from healthy families.

  I feel validated and comforted that others have experience a similar journey as mine and that these gifted authors had so intuitively crafted those memories, those Moments, into such a unique book.  

  This will be my “handbook” now, when anxiety and grief threatens to intrude.  Words do not express my gratitude to Marina Reed and Marian Boyd for their commitment and time to create this work of healing. ”

— Elizabeth W

Inside: Remember, It’s OK: Loss of a Parent

Foreward

Although we all unconsciously know death is always present, lurking, on the periphery, biding its time to enter our lives, we are content to keep it out of our awareness.  Nothing can prepare us for the loss of one who is deeply loved.  

Remember, It’s OK  is a testament to the power of love and the innate healing potential within each one of us. I loved the time and space made to honour grief, the searing honesty and the ascent back to life and a reforged self. This book provides us with a way forward and allows us to move through all the tumultuous emotions grief throws our way. The authors use six colours as the roadmap forward, one that calls to our emotional selves; from Red through to Pale Blue. They show there is light at the end of the journey.  

Remember, It’s OK, doesn’t allow us to short change the all-encompassing reach of death and loss.  We begin to understand that it is not only the loss of our loved one, but loss of a Life and the Self, that no longer exist. We are uplifted by the words of the support person;  sparse, compassionate, understanding, containing seeds of hope. 

Remember, It’s OK, is a gift, a gem, for all who have lost a loved one.  It is an enlightening guide for friends, colleagues, family members, therapists and those in the helping professions, allowing them entry into a world that can only be known by those who have been unwilling travelers in this terrain of loss.  After reading this beautifully written book, it will no longer be possible or even desirable, to dismiss, shrink and relegate grief into a small manageable package.

Having worked as a therapist for twenty years, Grief has made many trips through my office door.  I wish Remember, It’s OK, would have been available for all of us: my clients, their friends, family, colleagues and myself.  This book is an inspirational demonstration of allowing, welcoming, and being supportive of whatever presents itself during the grief process.  It is a beautiful dance between a courageous griever, the wise and talented companion and the Love lost.  There are no timelines, no right or wrong, simply a person and deep honouring.  A process that doesn’t limit itself to survival but creates opportunities for profound healing, growth and transformation.  

I hope you find this book as beautiful, heart wrenching and ultimately triumphant, as I did.

Sincerely,

Karen Harrington

Psychotherapist 

(B.A., M.A. Psychology/Grief Counselling)