.png)
The bond between parents and their children is incredibly strong, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a public figure or not.
How people choose to cope with the loss of a parent can range from shock, isolation and inconsolable tears, but there’s no wrong way to grieve.
Someone who knows a lot about the pain of losing their mother is Martin Lewis. Though the Money Saving Expert may seem like he has it all, there was a time where he fell into darkness for three years straight.
Advert
The 51-year-old opened up about the moment he was notified of his mother’s death when he was just 11 years old.
During an appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live in 2018, he said: "Three days before my 12th birthday I went to Sunday school - or Jewish Sunday school as it was - someone strange picked me up and took me home.
"I knew them but it wasn't what I was expecting.
Advert
"When I got home I had been told there had been an accident - my mum had been horse-riding with my sister and there had been an accident involving a lorry.
"Nobody told me how serious it was."
At the time, Lewis was worried about his mum being in hospital and the possibility that she would have to miss his birthday, but he was reassured by his grandmother that she would make it to his Bar mitzvah.
"I thought nothing of it," he added.
Advert
Lewis continued: "The next day my dad told me she had died that morning - and that was the end of my childhood that moment. I cried every day until I was 15."
The heartbreak from losing his mum led to Lewis isolating himself throughout his teenage years.
The financial journalist went on to explain that once he had stopped crying, he became ‘brittle’.
Advert
"It's probably the defining moment that changed my life," he said.
Lewis went on to admit that it wasn’t until he was married, and they had a daughter that he was able to cope with Mother’s Day.
However, Lewis also ‘annoyingly’ credits many of his successes to losing his mother so young 'because there is a drive for a child who has lost a parent that nothing else will hurt you like you have already been through'.
He said he became ‘bullish’ and unafraid of things or people hurting him as he’d already been through the worst.
Advert
Lewis shared that 'nothing is going to be able to touch me or hurt me like that again'.
The radio session was incredibly emotional, with a few moments of tears throughout his explanation of that time in his life, but he made sure to end it on a positive note.
Lewis described how to comfort a child who has lost a parent, with examples of not forcing them to talk about it if they are reluctant to, and to just be there ready for a conversation if needs be.
But his main point was to change the way that you view death.
Lewis said: “It is far better to remember the wonderful person that you lost than to remember that you lost a wonderful person.”
Topics: Martin Lewis, Parenting
Britt Jones