Patience, love, and plenty of talking: Helping children to cope with the grief of losing a parent 

Losing your mother or father when you’re young is a loss like no other. For those left behind, finding a path through the pain is a very personal journey

Stephen Teap, whose wife Irene passed away in 2017, with sons Noah (5) and Oscar (8) at their Co Cork home. Photo: Michael MacSweeney/Provision

Kathy Donaghy

In the summer of 2012, Caitríona Nic Mhuiris was on holidays in France with her husband and two children when she got the news that her sister had passed away. Landing home from that trip, she knew none of their lives would ever be the same again.

Úna, one of Caitríona’s triplet sisters, had died of a sudden cardiac death, leaving her four young daughters — who were then aged eight, 10, 12 and 14 — without either parent. The girls had lost their father in a car accident some years earlier.