Kelsey Parker hopes speaking out about her experience of grief after losing husband Tom Parker will help others facing loss or trauma.
Kelsey Parker hopes her book will help others experience grief and trauma
The Wanted star was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma in October 2020 and sadly lost his battle in March 2022, at the age of 33, and Kelsey - who has daughter Aurelia, three, and son Bodhi, two, with Tom - has released the book 'With or Without You' about dealing with loss and admitted it was like "therapy" for her.
She told Closer magazine: "I needed someone to tell me 18 months ago that I'll be OK, I will have bad days, but good days too, and that you can still live a happy life after loss. My life without Tom is very different to what it was. I'd give anything for it to be different and to have him here with me, but that's not what's happened.
"I have to live with my grief. It's learning to live with your grief and still lead a happy life, which has been part of my healing journey and one I wanted to share. I am hoping it will help people who are going through grief or loss or any kind of trauma.
"Putting it all down on paper was like therapy for me. It was very hard to relive it all, and there were a lot of tears.
But there was laughter too. Tom taught me how to have fun, how not to take things seriously, and that life is just too short."
Kelsey chanelled her grief into the tome, in which she shares how she did "everything" possible to save her spouse.
She told OK! Magazine recently: “My friend said there was no stone unturned for Tom and I went to the ends of the earth to try and save him.
“I flew a Spanish doctor over to see him. There was nothing I couldn’t do or wouldn’t have done for him. You get that from the book – that I did everything. He was my absolute world, my everything and I wanted him to live in this world with us.”
Tom's children talk about their daddy "every day" and there are plenty of his pictures and keepsakes around the house to remember him by.
Kelsey added: “He’s still very present in the house. His pictures are everywhere. We’ve still got his book ['Hope: My Inspirational Life'] out and his records up. We talk about him every day.
"Aurelia said to me just recently, ‘You’ve always put me to bed.’ And I said, ‘No, Daddy used to put you to bed.’ And I was telling her how Daddy used to look after her.
"Bodhi is just a mini version of Tom. He’s been wearing his cap back to front, which was Tom’s signature fashion statement, and his personality is so much like Tom’s. He really just makes me laugh.”
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