Introduction

Living With Leo began as a very private and personal record of a father’s grief. It quickly developed into the story of that same father’s need to somehow parent a child whose birth had been so eagerly awaited and whose death was so hard to accept.

Leo Di Clemente was born on 27 January 2003 and the book contains twelve letters, from a father to his son, written at monthly intervals and always completed on the twenty-seventh day of the month. The letters are intensely personal, and yet universal too, and they will strike a chord with any parent who has ever had to endure the most painful loss of all: that of a child. The book also contains a further ten chapters. They tell a story of excitement and anticipation, of bereavement and grief and, perhaps most important of all, of strength and hope.

Living With Leo is a father’s way of honouring his lost child and of giving him his place in a family that misses him terribly, loves him dearly and is unquestionably better for having known him.

Visitors to this website will be able to read extracts from many of the book’s 22 chapters. For bereaved parents, this will undoubtedly remind them of the pain and suffering they have gone through and the sense of loss which they continue to live with. It may make them want to read the entire book or it may be that the extracts here are as much as they can manage to read at that particular point in their grieving process. Hopefully, though, they will also feel comforted. Hopefully, too, it may help them to know that they are not alone. As for family, friends, and colleagues of a bereaved parent, Living With Leo may be a way of making them feel comforted, helped and informed.

This site also provides details of organisations and charities, to whom bereaved parents may wish to turn, as well as a comprehensive list of books and publications which may prove helpful. There is also a link to various reviews of Living With Leo along with interviews with the author.

Forthcoming events, usually organised by a particular organization or charity, are also publicised and there is a visitors’ page for anybody who has anything they wish to say - perhaps about their own loss or that of somebody close to them; perhaps about the bereavement process, about Living With Leo or about anything which has been inspired by their visit to this site.

For those who may wish to purchase Living With Leo, there is an order form on the Recommended Reading page which can be printed out and sent to the book’s main supplier, SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society). Alternatively, there is a direct link to Amazon’s website where Living With Leo is also available.

Thank you for visiting.