Product Description
Based on interviews with scores of people and her own experience as a clinical psychologist, the author traces the lasting effect of the premature death of one's parents on all aspects of one's life. 25,000 first printing. National ad/promo. Tour.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 18 reviews)

This book helps one with losing a parent through death or abuse

I purchased this book in the fall of 2004 for someone I loved who lost his dad at age 7. He would NOT read it. However, I bought a 2nd copy, and I read it, and reread it, and found that the book was for ME as well. Our parental losses were our connecting points. He lost his dad through death. I lost my dad through alcoholism. While I struggled with this loss, and its affiliative repercussions in my first marriage and in all of my life, until I surrendered to a lifelong process of healing and interpersonal growth, I had not grown beyond the loss. This book did indeed prepare me for my father's real death 6 months later. It was like a cushion and I knew that I had already lost someone I could not fully regain even though he was alive when I read the book. Fortunately, my work in therapy helped me to love, forgive, appreciate,and to let go while my father was living. Having someone die to you who is living and breathing is also a loss that goes on forever. The book needs to be read in small bites....and sessions, and will definitely help you heal. Whether one can remember or not, not having a parent be fully present either/or/and emotionally OR physically is a huge loss to anyone in life, and particularly before we mature and marry and become parents ourselves. There is a huge hole is in our lives that affects ALL of our relationships and requires gentleness and loving support to heal. This book helped me to understand my friend, and his fears of intimacy and closeness and how differently each person responds to the losses, and what decisions one makes about being close in adult relationships. Maxine Harris has done an excellent job of grasping the extent of this loss and put it into print in words everyone can understand. It is NOT a technical therapy book. The only hard parts are reading, understanding, realizing the loss, and processing through. Good material for use with a therapist or on your own. If you have NOT done a great deal of therapy, you might join a grief support group while reading this book. Many times individuals think that a loss has to be immediate to join. This is NOT so. You will find the support and group dynamics nurturing. This book nurtured me, and I hope it nurtures you. Be gentle with yourself and the book. It took me a couple of weeks to go through it each time. A powerful help book! Judy Laughton Lilley, M.A. Counseling and Professional Psychology
August 05, 2008

A story that parallels my own life

I was one of the people initially interviewed for the book when it was being written. After the book was published I was so deeply affected by the overall effect of all the lives that Ms. Harris had so beautifully interwoven. For the first time in my life I no longer felt so alone having been a child who lost a parent at an early age. I think this is must reading for anyone of any age who has gone through this experience or knows others who have had this experience.
January 17, 2007

Must Read

This book is a must read for anyone who has lost a parent in their childhood. I was talking about it today at my book club meeting where four out of seven us lost a parent at a young age. We all agreed with a lot of what was written in this book. Three of us had tears in our eyes as we described our experiences. We all had tears rolling down our cheeks when one of us told about going to elementary school and the other kids could have their mothers be the room mother and how she didn't have a mother to do this. This woman is in her 40s. Realistic look at those of us who were so unforunate to lose a parent and how it defined our lives.
January 10, 2007

Gives you hope at a dark time

My 45 year old husband died suddenly of a heart attack. He was a very thin, active person who never smoked and had NO family history of heart disease. Besides dealing with my loss I was distraught at this staggering blow to our three children, 18, 15, and 10. This book gave me hope that our children could go on to live whole and happy lives in spite of this loss. Eight years later, our children have, for the most part, thrived. I recommend this to anyone dealing with this tragedy in their lives.
October 16, 2005

As bad as it is for surviving spouse, it's worse for the children

This book was a life-saver for me some 10 years ago when my husband, at age 40, died from cancer. We had two children - ages 5-1/2 and 20 months at the time - and this book helped me empathize with their plight and grief at their daddy's death.
As hard as his death was for me personally, I understood after reading this book that the experience was at the time -- and would be in the future -- far harder for them. It let me shift focus away from myself and to something far more important -- helping guide their little hearts and minds into stable, secure and productive adulthoods.
July 16, 2005

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