Healing Hearts: Fund a story for grieving children

Hello, I’m Dr Trudy Meehan—clinical psychologist, author, and mam to an amazing ten-year-old adventurer who lost her dad to suicide when she was two. When we looked for stories that mirrored her experience, every book ended in tidy, happy resolutions that didn’t speak to the why behind her pain. I realised:

Children facing traumatic loss are growing up without stories that name their reality.

So I wrote “The Way Home.”

In this picture-book, an astronaut is stranded in space after a solar storm wrecks his equipment. Rescue ships race toward him, loved ones beam messages of love—but he can’t hear them. His oxygen (and hope) run low. In the final spread the reader decides whether hope or despair wins. Children regain control of a story that so often feels uncontrollable in real life. This provides a safe, imaginative space where children can explore difficult emotions, find agency in their own healing, and restore their feelings appropriately for where they are in their grief journey.

As a mother and a clinical psychologist, I know first-hand the profound silence and isolation that children face after losing a parent to suicide. While there were books on bereavement, none addressed the unique question of ‘why’? They lacked the language to explain the most heart breaking question: "If they loved me so much, why did they leave me?" Children who experience this often internalise a devastating thought: "Was I not good enough? Was I not lovable enough to make them stay?"

This is a burden no child should carry alone.

This story helps children understand a crucial truth: sometimes, pain can be so overwhelmingly powerful that it overshadows love. It explains that it's not that the love wasn't big enough, but that pain can conceal or distort everything.

Why This Book is So Needed:

• Addresses a Critical Gap: There are virtually no children's books that sensitively and age-appropriately address the “why” question in suicide loss.

• Normalises the Conversation: We need cultural tools that make talking about suicide more accessible, removing the stigma that often leaves children feeling alone and misunderstood. This isn't a specialist handbook; it's a story that belongs on every child's bookshelf.

• Provides Emotional Language: "The Way Home" offers a framework for parents, guardians, and therapists to scaffold difficult conversations, giving children the language to process their feelings and understand that their experience is seen and validated.

• Expert Oversight: I wrote this book with the lived experience of a mother but also with the professional experience of being a Clinical Psychologist who has worked with children and adolescents bereaved by suicide. I am a lecturer and researcher at The Centre for Positive Health Sciences in the Royal College of Surgeons University of Medicine of Health Science. I lecture on the Professional Certificate in Children and Loss run by RCSI and the Irish Hospice Foundation.

• Impact and Accountability: Evidence shows that children heal when their stories are seen, named, and normalised. This book gives them—and the adults who love them—language for the hardest “why” they may ever ask. If unexpected savings occur, surplus funds will subsidise future print runs and free resources.

• Ongoing support: We've received incredibly positive feedback from publishers, noting the book's bravery and necessity. Our illustrator, Fergal O'Connor, funded by the Irish Hospice Foundation and Creative Ireland, has brought incredible sensitivity and depth to the artwork. Natural Health Store has provided generous support to move the book forward to the next stage and work with Red Heaven Design. Killian Waters from Arcade Film directed and edited the short video for this campaign. So many brilliant creative people have given their talents and time to this project.

Where Your Support Goes: Printing and Distribution

We have the story, we have the beautiful illustrations, and we have the crucial need. Now, we need your help to bring "The Way Home" to life. Quality colour printing for children's picture books is expensive, and as a niche but vital book, securing traditional publishing can be challenging.

How your generous funds will be used:

• Commercial Printing Costs: Covering the significant expense of printing the first run of "The Way Home."

• Distribution Efforts: Helping us get this book into the hands of families, schools, hospices, and bereavement centres where it can make the most difference.

Our goal is to ensure this book is not hidden away in specialist sections but is widely available, de-stigmatising suicide loss and showing children that they are not alone in their grief. If you'd like to hear more, you can hear me talk about the book in this TedX Talk.