Area woman publishes book on how families cope with death

Three families suffered the loss of a child. Karla Hicklin of Piedmont, Mo., knew each family. She has recently published a book, "She Slept Through It: Sue's Story," about how each family has endured its loss, come through the pain and, most importantly, learned to forgive and move on.

Hicklin fictionalized the real people, giving them different names and concealing the time frame and locations to preserve their privacy. But the circumstances, told in three separate stories in the book, are true.

The title story, "Sue's Story," is about "Michelle," a girl Hicklin grew up with who died from carbon monoxide poisoning at 17. The girl's mother, Sue, learned to come to terms with Michelle's death as well as with her own feelings about the young man who died alongside her daughter.

"Sue started writing the book herself," Hicklin said. "It was emotionally draining. She handed it to me to do it."

The book was difficult for Hicklin to write, too, since she knew Michelle. But in the process she said she became closer to Sue. The book took more than three years to finish.

"I had to take long breaks," she said. "I got too emotionally attached -- to that one especially."

She also got attached to the story of Lauren, whose real cause of death was revealed two years after she died, shocking her parents and making her brother take a hard look at his own life. And there is the story of Pam and Dave, whose child was accidentally shot by another child. Pam and Dave are her distant cousins. Once the families began to heal, Hicklin said, they wanted to reach out to others.

"They are hoping more than anything that grieving parents see there are mistakes that could be avoided," she said. "You have to open up; you have to. You have to be honest about your feelings.

"Everyone has the right to grieve. It helps you heal. You need to forgive and find God; finding him is the best thing you can do. Forgiveness played such a key role in all these families."

None of the families will ever get over the deaths of their children, Hicklin said, but they have learned to live with it and move on.

Hicklin, 47, was born in St. Louis, but has roots in Cape Girardeau and other Southeast Missouri communities. A freelance writer, she lives now in Piedmont, where she is putting the finishing touches on her next book, which she describes as a "funeral etiquette book." Using the families in her first book, along with some others, she advises what not to say to grieving families and offers information on how to help others through such a sorrowful time.

"She Slept Through It: Sue's Story" is available online at Barnes & Noble Online, Cokesbury.com, and Amazon.com. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to causes close to the families portrayed in the book: the Missouri Department of Conservation, animal shelters in Missouri and education funds for underprivileged people.

The book is a slim volume, and each story is told succinctly and with respect. Hicklin said her tears flowed with each step of the process toward getting the book published.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

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