“Sad things are hard to hear.
They are pretty hard to say, too.
They should be told in little pieces.”
Ever since Tilda died
I have collected books about loss and grief
Books that help to explain death
Books that offer hope and comfort to those left behind
There are many brilliant and beautiful books on this topic
I feel blessed that we live in a golden age of picture books
That have truly helped me support and comfort my children in their grief
That have helped me answer their questions
Questions they still ask as we approach a decade
Since our beautiful baby died
It is picture books I turn to when anyone I know loses a loved one
Sometimes words are hard to find when all around you are hurting
Often books can carry the message for you
Until you are ready
Until you can find your own words
To help with accepting and healing
To offer hope and comfort
I also use picture books to share with people
The grief journey
To show that we all grieve differently
To illustrate the huge range of emotions grief brings
The up, down, back and forth of feelings
That never go away when you have lost a child
Lost someone that you loved with everything that you have
It is also books that have helped others to understand
Why we grieve for people we do not know
And why it is okay to feel sadness at someone else’s loss
It is natural
And it is important that grief is acknowledged and normalised
In all its forms
No one should ever be told how to grieve
How to behave after losing someone precious
Grief is unique to each individual
All we can do is be there
And offer love, support, space, time
And when ready, hope
Karl James Mountford
Has created one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen
That does all of these things
The Circles In The Sky
Is a powerful, poignant story of love, loss, grief and hope
It is a book that I want to place in the hands of every bereaved mother
Every sibling suffering loss
Every family with an empty place at the their table
The Circles In The Sky is stunning
I cried with my children as we read this
Because it says so perfectly
What I need to the world to know
About losing a part of yourself
When someone you love dies
When Tilda died we were given very little professional advice
But one thing we were told and I have never forgotten
Is when talking to children about death you must not
Say that someone has got lost or fallen asleep
As it can build fear in children
It was important that they understood that
Their sister had died
Even using clear language
It took time for them to understand
Only slowly as she was not at the tea table
In the bath with them
Or in her carseat in the car
Did they begin to understand that their baby sister
Was not coming back
Over the last decade picture books have got so much better
For helping with explaining death to children
I still need to write the book what we needed
About the death of a baby sibling
It is the book that no one wants to write
But I need to
I wish with all my heart we had had this book
When Baby Tilda died
Because I think we would have read it over and over together
And it would have helped us all bond and heal and know
That in spite of all the pain and confusions
We were going to be okay
And that in itself is a hard thing to accept after the loss of a child
That it really is okay to be okay
The Circles In The Sky
Tells the tale of fox
He is drawn into the forest
By strange morning birdsong
Fox finds a clearing
And lying there
Small, still, perhaps forgotten
Is a bird
Fox thinks that the bird is broken
And tries to fix it
A watching moth tells fox
That the bird is beyond fixing
Fox is confused when moth says that the bird is no longer here
He can see the bird
Moth is patient
He tries to explain death to fox
Using a story about the sun and the moon
It is a beautiful moving story
That explains how when someone dies
They may physically leave us
But they are still with us
In our hearts, in our memories
In the things we say and do
Fox finds the tale confusing
Asking if bird will rise again like the sun
Moth is trying to be kind
To explain death gently
But eventually he has to just tell fox
That bird is dead
Fox feels sad
He feels sad for bird
And once he understands death
He welcomes and understands Moth’s story
About the circles in the sky
About remembering
Never forgetting
And always being together
We all have stories to explain difficult things
We use lots of different stories for talking about Tilda
She is the brightest star in the sky
Because we sent her ashes to the ocean
She is in every raindrop, snowflake, puddle, stream and sea
Tilda paints the sky with a rainbow to say hello
She sends kisses in the trails left by jet planes
White feathers are messages fallen from heaven
And now she will be the sunlight reflected from the moon
Another tale for our library of comfort and support
When sadness comes to call
When we are missing our baby who died and
The little girl who should be here
