‘Where Did Grandma Go?’ — Chantal Rochelle’s Heartfelt Children’s Book Helps Grieving Hearts Of All Ages [Exclusive]

At some point, grief has the power to cause a ripple effect in our lives, regardless of our age. 

Following her mother’s passing, Chantal Rochelle found her young niece grappling to come to terms with such a magnitude of loss. This prompted her to develop the idea of writing a children’s book, Where Did Grandma Go?, to help young (and not so young) people learn to cope with the shift that comes with losing someone you love.

“It’s such a personal story,” she told MadameNoire. “My mother transitioned in 2019, and when that happened, my whole world shifted. I remember watching my sister, particularly my niece, try to understand it all. I mean, she was only 3 at the time. I saw how confused and heartbroken she was because she and my mom were thick as thieves. I also saw how deeply curious she was. She’s very intuitive herself. She had all these big questions, and there was no easy way to answer something so impactful.”

RELATED CONTENT: Stacey Abrams Releases First Children’s Book, ‘Stacey’s Extraordinary Words’

Rochelle added, “I realized that there weren’t any stories to talk to her, I won’t say there weren’t any, but even for me, in that moment, writing this book from a child’s perspective, rather, allowed me to honor her innocence and her honesty and just intrinsic, curious wonder that she has and has always had. Children grieve in real time with wonder and kind of like directness, and I wanted to meet that with tenderness, space, compassion, truth, and just honesty, as best as possible. I gravitate so dearly towards children, I think just with having this curious wonder that reminds me of just being a kid and having the world as your oyster, and having, again, this eye and lens of just purity.”