Parentless Parents by Allison GilbertIn HERE ONE DAY I face my mother’s mental illness and death, and the effects of living with her and her suicide as a way of coping with my mother’s absence. Allison Gilbert lost both of her parents before she was 31. In her book, Parentless Parents, Gilbert looks into the consequences of raising children without your own parents’ presence. As Gilbert explains, grandparents provide their children with a stronger connection to deeply rooted family traditions, advice on how to deal with challenges in parenting, as well as a fun refuge for grandchildren. She illustrates different ways of keeping the memory of grandparents alive for grandchildren and bridging what she calls the “grandparent gap.” At first I struggled to keep the memory of my mother alive for my children. Since she died by suicide I was unsure of how to let her be a part of their lives without telling them the whole story before I was ready. Making HERE ONE DAY and reading books like Gilbert’s have helped me get over this fear and share my mother and her family’s history with my two little boys. Thanks Allison for writing such a helpful book! To learn more about her book go to: http://www.allisongilbert.com/