Standing on My Brother’s Shoulders: Making Peace With Grief and Suicide

A suicide loss survivor tells her story.

Tara Lal's childhood was battered by her father's mental illness and by her mother's death when she was thirteen. Caught up in grief and despair, she developed a deep, caring bond with her charismatic and kind older brother Adam, though he struggled silently with growing anxiety and depression. Four years after their mother's death, Adam committed suicide.

Grief and insecurity threatened to engulf Tara, but eventually she found, through a dialogue with the words her brother left behind in his diaries, her reason to live.

The book includes an Afterword on the possibilities for recovery and growth following a tragedy, written by Miriam Akhtar, author of Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression.

Tara J Lal was born in London and now lives in Sydney, Australia. A firefighter and Mental Health First Aid Instructor, she is trained in suicide prevention and researches suicide and mental health in firefighters, as well as speaking on behalf of leading charities to raise awareness of suicide and mental illness. To find out more visit her website: www.tarajlal.com