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| What Every Grieving Mother Wishes You Knew |
Little did I know how affecting this book would be for me.
I was one of the lucky people Author Janet Little Cooper asked to read it before publication.
One of the most powerful, poignant, and gut-wrenching paragraphs of this book was when Janet shared walking out of the hospital accompanying her son Bryant’s body which was on a gurney. It was the absolute saddest day of her life. Twenty-five years earlier was one of her happiest as she’d walked out of that same hospital with his older brother, Austin as a newborn.
It was a circle of life moment.
When “What Every Grieving Mother Wishes You Knew” became available to the public on April 7, 2025, I was in a Hospital Hospice Unit with my mother. A month earlier Janet had gifted me something neither of us knew I would be needing: her book.
My mother died on April 8, 2025, on my daughter’s 35th birthday. I couldn’t help but think of Janet as I experienced my own circle of life moment.
I will be forever grateful I was able to read her book before my mother’s death. Janet’s honesty about the dying process, grief, and the emotional toll due to family dynamics helped me through a difficult time.
I first met Janet Cooper when she was employed as a local newspaper reporter. She interviewed me about a children’s book I’d written. I was living in North Carolina at the time but had grown up in Northwest Florida. I was staying with my parents while doing author school visits.
We immediately hit it off. While talking about our children, I discovered that her son, Austin, and my nephew, J.P., were good friends. They were in their teens at the time, and we had stories!
In reflection, it was one of those joyful, ordinary days in life that I failed to recognize for the gift it was. We were just two working Mamas dissing about the children we loved.
It’s easy to take for granted the blessing of a mundane ordinary life. However, none of us escape life unscathed. Some of us just experience heartbreak earlier.
Several years later I found out Janet’s youngest son, Bryant, had been diagnosed with cancer at age 17. I’d gone through my own scare when my daughter found a lump in her breast at age 19. As a breast cancer survivor, I can tell you NOTHING terrifies you more than thinking your child may have cancer. I felt sick when I found out what Janet was going through.
Only when reading “What Every Grieving Mother Wishes You Knew” did I find out she’d also lost both her parents since we’d first met. She was a minister’s daughter. Or her mother had died from cancer seven months after Bryant was diagnosed. How devastated she must have been.
As a writer, I know how gut-wrenching it was to relive and write about everything she went through during and after Bryant’s death. Her reporter’s background served her well as she has done a superb job weaving her father’s sermons into her life lessons.
If you’re not of the Christian faith do not let that discourage you from reading this book. Her book is a testament of faith, minus the judgment.
It will make an excellent study guide for any person or organization navigating grief.
One of the most often quoted scriptures in the Bible is Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. It states “To everything there is a season- A time to be born, a time to die….” It’s a difficult scripture to wrap your head around when mourning a child.
I was 34 years old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Both my parents were still alive and my children were toddlers. My prayer then and now was I’d outlive my parents and my children would outlive me.
“Whatever Grieving Mother Wishes You Knew” doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that life doesn’t always follow what we deem the natural order of the seasons. Even when it does that doesn’t mean we’re not still devastated.
Janet has written a love story to her sons, a testament to the faith her parents bestowed on her, and a non-judgmental self-help guide to anyone struggling through the grief process. Or trying to figure out what to do or say to someone who is.
I was honored to be one of her first readers. I am privileged to recommend “What Every Grieving Mother Wishes You Knew”, by Author Janet Little Cooper.
Amelia Frahm
Author, Mother, Daughter
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| My mother. |
