Book to help parents cope with the loss of a child

Lorraine Jones-Lawrence is a firm believer in turning our mess into our message. This is demonstrated in the title of her first book, You Gotta Get Up: Surviving the Loss of Your Child.

Lorraine’s 20-year-old son was killed in 2009 in a fight with another young man. She recalls that losing her child had always been her greatest fear and in the weeks after her son’s death there was one thought that nagged at her. “What do you do when the worst thing that could ever happen has happened to you?

“Looking back, I think it was that thought and my focusing on it that saved me’, she writes. “I guess every parent or anyone who has survived the death of someone really close asks themselves some variation of that question. I don’t think I have truly found the answer to that question, but it created a curiosity in my mind that gave me something on which I could focus during the darkest of times.”

In the end, she decided to pour everything she had learned from her ordeal and her training in bereavement work into a guide for other grieving parents – You Gotta Get Up: Surviving the Loss of Your Child.

The book was launched on May 19, at Webster Memorial United. Speaking at the event, Psychologist Dr. Peter Weller gave a fulsome endorsement of the work, telling the author, “In this relatively short space you manage to compress …wow …you compress, wow, in terms of the scope of what you cover. As a clinical psychologist, I don’t think you missed anything in terms of putting the pieces out there, in terms of the dimensions of managing an experience like this.” He cited the myriad themes that are dealt with in the book– the roller coaster nature of grief, the emotional complexity, “you speak about the anger, the guilt, the fear, reminding us that it’s all normal”.

NOT AN EASY READ

He noted the other themes, such as the emotions of surviving children, gender dynamics, the dynamics of parental grief, concluding, “It’s something that needs to be read and re-read. It’s not necessarily an easy read, especially if it is touching on your personal experience, but it’s an important read.”

Pastor Percival Palmer of Fellowship Tabernacle, a counselling psychologist, described the book as “very powerfu’’ and a ‘must-read’ … He noted, “It is a book that needs to be shared across the length and breadth of this country because … as a country we are traumatised … It is a resource that must get into the hands of every guidance counsellor, everybody who has been trained in psychology. It just captures a lot of information so simply, but, yet it is such a resource.”

Other speakers included Ruth Taylor, CEO of the publishing company Bambu Sparks, and Andrea Hopwood, the author’s friend and mentor who started the first bereavement group in Jamaica and has volunteered as a support group facilitator for over 30 years.

Dr Glen Christian noted that he found himself unable to put it down once he had started reading. Another testimonial came from Chris Morris, CEO of the accounting firm Morris Style and Associates who noted, “Lorraine said she had been nervous about the [launch] event because she didn’t want persons to come and feel sad. I am here today … to tell you that I have this overwhelming feeling of joy. My grief was from my father passing … and this book helped me to cope with that loss. So, this book brings a sense of joy and I’m glad that it’s here.

You Gotta Get Up is published by Bambu Sparks Publishing with a foreword by Dr Kenneth Doka, senior vice president of the Hospice Foundation of America. It is available in the Fontana Pharmacy chain and on Amazon.