SAANICH, B.C.: A young girl from B.C. is helping others deal with grief from the loss of a loved one to cancer by writing about her own grief.
At just 15, Olivia Hahn lost her mother to cancer. After her death she found it difficult to find books which would help her with the grief that followed.
That’s what spurred the idea for Healing Our Wounded Hearts: A real life story about loss in the voice of a teenager. It recently became available through Amazon.
“Children and teens are expected to grieve the same as adults,” said Hahn, who lives in Saanich, B.C., in a post sent to The Laker News. “In fact there are similarities, but our brains are not fully developed yet but we often have bigger and stronger emotions.”
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The book is written in the voice of a teenager as a teenager and is an account of finding her voice through all this loss.
“Learning to express my feelings through dance, poetry, and writing gives me space for my grief,” she said.
“I’m now allowing myself to feel it because I will no longer put it away because grief doesn’t belong pent up in a cage.”
Hahn’s father John is proud of what his daughter has accomplished, and that’s evident in the emails back and forth with us here at The Laker News. John is who made us aware of this book, and while not in our area we felt our readers would like to hear about the book.
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Hahn said her grief is always going to be the crack in the floor that you can never fix.
“Instead get some glue and support it rather than letting it get bigger and bigger where it can no longer hold your weight,” said Hahn.
“I hope that in reading my story you can feel less alone and help with your journey through mourning.”
She encourages those in mourning to take their grief out from under their bed when they’re ready to do so.
Healing Our Wounded Hearts: A real life story about loss in the voice of a teenager.is available on Amazon in a paperback or Kindle book.
Proceeds from the book will support palliative care in the Saanich, B.C. area, her hometown.
