My Mother's Story: Gone Too Soon

Following the success of My Mother's Story: The Originals and North Vancouver, actor and project founder Marilyn Norry, and Registered Therapeutic Counsellor Michelle Hohn, combine their experience to present this third book in the anthology series on the extraordinary lives of ordinary women.

Gone Too Soon is a courageous collection written using the My Mother's Story template by adults who experienced the loss of their mother in childhood or adolescence. It offers the rich, lived experiences of 20 mothers and their 20 bereaved children-18 women and 2 men-residing in four nations (Canada, the USA, the UK, and South Korea). Even though their paths are unique, these anthology contributors traverse difficult emotional terrain together to more definitively answer the question "Who was my mother?" Collectively they transform the narrative from feeling a mother's absence to finding her presence.

Both heartbreaking and hopeful, these stories are about far more than grief and loss. As well as contributing to the history of women, they present readers with a vibrant array of experiences revealing how ordinary women have actually lived - their values, choices, fulfillment, and opportunities, as well as their challenges, moments of quiet desperation, and defeats along the way.

If you are drawn to this book:

- you may have personally experienced mother loss (perhaps at a young age) and may be feeling alone in your grief;

- your mother is perhaps still living, but you have felt other losses and wish to understand more about the direct experience of others;

- you may be seeking resources to support someone you know in their loss and grief;

- you may be familiar with other My Mother's Story anthologies or online archive and are keen to read the next set of extraordinary stories about ordinary women.

Guided by the tradition of the My Mother's Story writing recipe and informed by expressive writing insights, Gone Too Soon combines the power of storytelling with healing, and demonstrates how this specific technique can be harnessed to lead to an increased sense of belonging, connection, and resilience for adults bereaved in childhood. Asking questions surrounding life's challenges facilitates understanding which brings meaning and contributes to individual journey of self discovery and healing.

In addition to the consistent anthology theme of early mother loss, this book contains a range of life experiences and specific topics that some readers may find difficult, including: substance use/abuse and death by overdose, domestic violence, mental illness, sudden or unexpected death, terminal illness, fatal accidents, self-harm, death by suicide, and wartime brutality.