Quick Look
Offers practical suggestions for parents, relatives and friends struggling to come to terms with the loss of a child, to help them embark on their own path of healing and acceptance.
Description
Around fifteen thousand children die each year in Britain alone. This means that there are many more thousands of parents, relatives and friends, struggling to come to terms with their loss. To observers they may appear to be coping, but only they know the scars that never heal, and can see the inner part that is missing.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve for a child. Each bereaved person must find the way that is right for them as an individual. Writing from personal experience, Betty Madill offers practical suggestions to help people embark on their own path of healing and acceptance.
Her advice is touching, credible and sensitive to the individual's need to move on with their life, taking happy memories of their child with them, while working through their debilitating grief.
This book is an invaluable source of comfort for all who find themselves in this situation. Together with practical ideas for dealing with the child's effects, or with feelings of guilt and helplessness, One Step at a Time combines personal recommendations, with recognized bereavement counselling advice.
Reviews
'A wealth of anecdotal and practical advice.'
-- Denise Roberts, This Morning
'A sensitive, practical book about coming to terms with losing a child, from a Christian perspective for families. Particularly welcome is her non-judgemental understanding of the individual pace of grief: none of that "you should be over it by now" rebuke which can be like a slap in the face. The book contains useful contact details too.'
-- Youth in Mind (www.youthinmind.net)
'One Step At A Time is easy to read, brief and personal. Had I been able to read Betty's book [when my daughter died] I would have found words of deep compassion, a list of resources and perhaps most important, "permission" to feel the way I did.'
-- Jessica North O'Connell, The Blessed Bee, Autumn 2003
Author
Betty Madill lost her three-year-old daughter, Lisa, in a swimming pool accident in Brazil in 1983. Her personal tragedy eventually led her to work as a counsellor for The Compassionate Friends, an organization which helps people to work through similar loss.
