Children's book about loss offers comfort during the holiday season
The book is already being used in some schools.
At first glance, I Will Always Love You looks like just another children's book, but the inside cover reads: "It's for everyone big or small. For the child who lives within us all."
Written by Lasalle author Melissa Lyons, the book features two children who have lost someone in their lives. The narrator of the book offers comforting guidance to the children about coping and moving on.
"My gifts to you include memories and love, and now you'll have more with my guidance above."
Lyons said the book was almost accidental. She and her husband were vacationing in Thailand when inspiration struck. Sitting on the beach one day, she said she just started writing.
Author Melissa Lyons with her children's book, I Will Always Love You. (Melissa Lyons
"It's the strangest thing that's ever happened," Lyons told Windsor Morning host Tony Doucette. "I must have had a funny look on my face. My husband asked me what was wrong and I said, 'I think I just wrote a book.'"
The book is illustrated by Detroit artist Mary Cindrich. One interesting feature of the drawings is that the children have no faces "so that the reader can put themselves into the children at any point," explained Lyons.
Not just for kids
The book is already being used in some schools at the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board, as well as schools, hospices and funeral homes in the Niagara region, Kitchener-Waterloo and Sarnia.
Not all of her readers have been children.
One woman who was recently divorced told Lyons she felt the book was more about loss than grief. "I think they (readers) see whatever they need to see," Lyons said.
"It's about a journey about realizing that we all have a choice as to how we're going to deal with whatever we're faced with. We don't get to choose what we're faced with but we do get to choose how we respond to it."
Originally posted on: CBC News · Posted: Dec 19, 2017 11:30 AM ET | Last Updated: December 19, 2017
