A GRIEVING mother found solace in writing while trying to come to terms with the death of her newborn son.
Her
book – Diary Of A Bereaved Mother: Goodbye My Baby – has touched the
lives of many mothers who have gone through the same agonising ordeal.
It
was the first written work of Sibu-born writer Ann Chin who produced it
in 2010, specially as a birthday gift to her son Andrew who would have
turned 21 that year had he lived.
Andrew was Ann’s third child
whom she lost 55 days after birth. The book was a compilation of the
letters she wrote during that traumatic period.
“The initial
manuscripts were written when I was in the hospital. Andrew was in the
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and I sat there for 55 days, writing letters
for families which I have kept till today,” she said.
Penned with such raw honesty, the book soon became a message of hope for mothers who have lost their babies.
Ann,
who now lives in New Zealand and teaches TESL (Teaching English As
Second Language) in Auckland, has written many materials, including
short stories and poetry.
However, by her own admission, the
amount of energy she spent writing them paled in comparison with that
she spent writing the Diary of a Bereaved Mother. It was the most
difficult to write, she remembered.
The reason was not that it was
her first ever book but rather that having to revisit that painful
period was “just too overwhelming.”
“I actually sat on the
documents for three days. The first and second day, I was too distraught
and didn’t do anything at all. The third day, I finally decided to
revisit those times – and I cried.
“But once I got through them –
on the fourth day – I started writing,” she said, adding that what made
it easier for her to start the opening paragraph was that she had the
letters in proper order.
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