Georgia widow writes a children’s book on grief and loss
“So you could see the beauty you hadn’t before.”
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Georgia mother has turned her grief into purpose. She is sharing her experience on social media and most recently has written a book, helping parents have difficult conversations about grief and loss with their children.
This was the life Julie Moran always dreamed of; a loving husband, and a growing family.
“I felt like I had the perfect life,” said mother, author, and social media influencer, Julie Moran.
It was perfect until her wonderful, larger-than-life husband Charles died in a car crash and Julie was left with a newborn and a twenty-two-month-old baby.
“She knew something was going on,” said Moran.
Talking to her babies as they grew, about death and loss, felt, well, there weren’t words.
“Slowly but surely I told her he is not going to come back from his work trip, he is going to stay in Heaven,” said Moran, “It was hard for her to grasp that concept because it was hard to grasp myself. I kept thinking he was going to come back from his work trip.”
Julie’s daughter came up with an analogy of her own.
“She was asking where the snowmen went when they melted and the more she talked about it the more I realized, ‘I don’t think she is talking about a snowman,’” said Moran.
Julie used her daughter’s conversation that night, to write a children’s book about grief and loss. The book is about a melting snowman and a little girl who finds joy again.
She also went to social media, sharing her grief journey, and gaining hundreds of thousands of followers along the way.
“I just started sharing my experience not thinking anything of it and apparently, a lot of people felt the same way,” said Moran.
Julie never thought she would find love again...
“I am a mom with two babies and a lot of baggage now, who is going to come into this? No one is going to take this on,” said Moran.
...but love came anyway.
“We actually met at a wedding. It was my best friend’s wedding,” said Moran.
She is happily married and pregnant with her third baby! There is life and joy beyond grief, Julie is proof of it.
“It has just been through such a tumultuous and terrible time in my life where I never thought anything was going to go right ever again, that I have been given blessing after blessing the past few months. It is truly a miracle,” said Moran.
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