Ruairí’s Rocket to heaven is a children’s story book for families, carers and professionals to explore, and navigate the difficult topic of death and bereavement with children from the age of 4+ years old. 

All profits from book sales are donated to Shooting Star Children’s Hospices in gratitude for the bereavement support they provided for my family and to support the invaluable work they do.

With gentle illustrations and clear language the book takes young readers into life with two brothers, Charlie and Ruairí. The first part of the book describes the boys’ life together e.g. playing, bath-time, cuddles. The second part focusses on Charlie’s life after his brothers death. It explores feelings like sadness, fear, anger and confusion and looks at different ways to express grief and find comfort in memories, through Charlie’s experiences. 

This is a story of heartbreak and hope, of hurting and healing, and of being happy again with sadness inside our hearts. A story of everlasting love between two brothers.

Unfortunately it’s a story that isn’t just my family’s, many young children go through this.

Our book can offer comfort and support to young children and their families during their own incredibly difficult times and that means the world to us. Each time Ruairí’s Rocket helps another family, Ruairí’s life continues to make a difference.

The story was illustrated by Beth Cole. Beth is an amazingly talented, considered and intuitive artist. She illustrated my boys and the emotion inside each memory beautifully.

You can find her work at instagram.com/herebythewoods

The origins of this book started soon after Ruairí died when I turned to books as a way to help my older son. Supporting Charlie has been my biggest and most important challenge, second only to facing my own grief. The books I found at the time were abstract or about the death of pets, grandparents or parents dying. They often used confusing language too, like ‘Saying Good bye’. I couldn’t find anything specifically about the unique heartbreak of a sibling dying. 

At the same time Charlie was drawing a lot and he drew a picture of his brother going to heaven in a rocket. That magical idea inspired me to write the story of my boys, as brothers together. Initially I wrote the story in the notes app on my phone, a way to capture all those sweet memories of my two boys' lives together. From time to time I edited it and added to it, mostly details about Charlie’s experiences grieving his brother. I’m not sure exactly when, but at some point the idea that it could be a children’s book started to take shape in my mind. It could be the book we needed but couldn’t find.

Then, in late 2021 I felt brave and able enough to truly give it a go. With Charlie as Chief Editor ensuring I captured everything exactly right we set about creating our book. I was very fortunate to find Beth Cole who illustrated our memories wonderfully. And finally, in January 2023, I published Ruairí’s Rocket to heaven.

The original rocket that Charlie drew hangs in our home. He went on to edit it as it looks now in the book, a blue rocket with PlayStation symbols: blue because it was his brother's favourite colour and PlayStation symbols because, well because they are so cool! He is very proud of it, and I am incredibly proud of him.