Today I am saluting H.R.H. Prince Harry for his candidness in sharing with others how he feels about the loss of his own mother. From what was shown on news reports yesterday he encouraged children who had lost their own parent to believe they will grow up normal.

Having lost a parent myself at a very early age I can say it is a tragic experience and in my day people were even less comfortable (if that’s possible) in talking about somebody that has died. To a child without the vocabulary to express their own feelings this makes life even more difficult.

One of my biggest bug bearers had always been that in not acknowledging somebody’s existence you are preventing them from grieving naturally especially a child. If anything when somebody loses a parent when they are young they never had the opportunity to get to know them so in denying their existence you are denying the bereaved that too.

My advice is to talk about their parent and share good experiences and allow them to keep their parent alive in their heart and in their memories, as my own Mother used to say ‘memories live longer than dreams’.

The few memories I have of my own father I cherish and I guess my love of music stemmed from listening to him and our Mother enjoying their record collection when we had gone to bed.

I hope to have my own story  ‘Dancing in my Dreams’ published soon.