5 Warm-Hearted Books on Grief for Loss of a Child

Sarah Keys has written an honest, personal account of the death of her son Freddie at the age of 10 weeks. The book tackles some difficult questions, such as what to say when people ask how many children you have.

The author discovers that people don’t really know how to talk to you when you have suffered the loss of a child. The story is told in a painfully honest way and reflects an attitude of strength and bravery. Other mothers who have faced a cot death will be able to identify with the author’s experiences and emotions.

The author says that 'Slings & Arrows' was a difficult book to write, but despite its subject matter, she felt it was an important story, especially for those who have suffered loss.

Powell’s daughter, Samantha, was severely brain damaged at the age of two after her heart stopped. She died and was brought back to life, eventually dying again seventeen years later. Rather than just a chronicle of events, this book is an honest examination of emotions and feelings during Samantha’s life and after she died.

The author bares her soul in this heart-wrenching story, and we feel her anguish as she watches helplessly while her child suffers. The story is told with unflinching honesty, and it is a horrifying, sad and incredibly moving but also inspirational read.

A mother’s life unravels when her 16-year-old son, a high school football player, is found lifeless in his bed. At first, she plunges into grief and despair. When she starts to resurface, she has an urge to spread awareness of the threat of sudden cardiac death to young athletes.

In her moving memoir, she intertwines excerpts from the journal she kept after her son’s death. Moving through the devastating pain and raw emotions, she starts to move towards acceptance.

The author started the Timothy Q Scott Foundation in honor of her son to help spread awareness about sudden cardiac death in young athletes.

Caroline Flohr, a mother of five, lost her daughter Sarah at the age of sixteen. Sarah was involved in a tragic car accident when she went on a midnight joyride with friends. The families in the small community were plunged into grief.

The book captures the devastating emotions experienced by her family and the community as they attempt to deal with their grief. Together they gain the courage to begin weaving their losses into their lives and find hope and healing. Flohr challenges readers to live in the moment and embrace the need to connect with one another.

She tackles some universal misunderstandings and deep questions. Having this book beside your bed when you are grieving can offer you solace and an acceptance that ‘death is part of life.’

Nine mothers who each lost a child wrote this book to give comfort to other bereaved parents. The mothers have a unique perspective because they have already lived with their loss for seven or more years.

The experience of the first dark year after a child’s death is well-known to all of them, and they share what they experienced and how they managed to survive. Relationships became strained, their definition of what was considered ‘normal’ changed and they realized there is no answer to the question “why?”

The book includes a chapter written from the perspective of surviving siblings who grieve and suffer too. What these mothers all experienced is that the grief does lift in time and you find a way to live, and even to laugh again.

Love is a powerful force, and the love between a bereaved parent and a child does not die. Every day parents who have lost children move mountains in their honor. They change laws, start movements, spearhead crusades and more in the hope that just one other parent is spared from the agony they have had to suffer.

The books they write are a demonstration of how grief changes you in ways you can’t imagine. They also give a glimmer of hope to those who are in the depths of darkness after the loss of a child.