'It was hard for my children to lose two siblings'

A bereaved mother has written two children's books about dealing with grief, after the death of her two baby daughters.

Scarlett Black, from Marlborough, Wiltshire, said she put pen to paper because her older children were struggling to come to terms with the loss.

Mrs Black's daughter, Millie-Grace, was stillborn in 2021 and she lost a second daughter, 13-week-old Carmen, earlier this year.

"It was hard for my children to lose two siblings; they were so confused, so all over the place," she said.

Still grieving after Carmen died on 22 June, Mrs Black wrote the first book, The Angels in the Sky, for Maisie and Mason, aged six and five.

"There wasn't really a lot out there for younger children to really understand, so I kind of wrote from the heart.

"When I read it to my children, they actually cried. I was, like, 'Oh, is it bad?' and they were, like, 'No, it's beautiful'," she said.

"The Angels in the Sky really helped them because it's basically what happened in their life."

Mrs Black said she was stunned by the positive reaction to the book, so decided to write a second one - The Rainbow Bridge of Love - in memory of Millie-Grace, who had died three years previously.

Both books are aimed at children from very young to about eight-years-old.

"A load of mums who've lost children said just reading the books themselves has warmed their hearts," she said.

The proceeds from book sales will be given to the charity, Helen and Douglas House, which offers hospice care for terminally-ill children in Oxfordshire and surrounding counties.

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