Boy (Paperback)

"On 31 March 2011 my quiet, reserved, beautiful son hanged himself. He was 14 years old. I am so altered I barely recognise myself in the mirror." Boy is the searing and beautifully written memoir of a mother, Kate Shand, who loses her son when he takes his own life one afternoon when no one is looking. When John Peter made the tragic decision to hang himself and end his life, he left behind a devastated family, grappling not only to cope with the overwhelming loss of a beloved son and brother, but to come to terms with the incomprehensible and unbearable choice he made that afternoon on 31 March 2011. Through the horror, rage, grief and desolation of her own personal tsunami, Shand takes an authentic journey to come to a hard-fought-for place of transformation, healing and love. Ultimately it is the story of a boy - just a boy like any other - and of a mother's survival in the aftermath of the suicide of her child. "As much as I hope the book will help others, ultimately it forms a most important part of my journey, healing and ongoing transformation."