If You Were Here + Life Interrupted Fundraising Bundle
I wrote my picture book If You Were Here a few months after losing my mum, Karina Stell. Mum passed away from lymphoma in 2018 after a long battle. The grief of losing my best friend and my anchor was enormous, but it was the loss for my children - and all the years they should have had with her - that If You Were Here was born from.
Mum was also a writer and spent the final years of her life completing her own story, her incredible and deeply moving memoir, Life Interrupted. She wanted to leave something behind for others facing the unimaginable - something that might help them feel seen and understood - while also raising money for research into new treatments, in the hope that others might have the chance she didn't.
All funds raised from sales of Life Interrupted go to blood cancer research.
When you purchase the Life Interrupted + If You Were Here book bundle, you will receive 10% off, with $30 from every bundle donated to blood cancer research.
For more information about Karina's chosen blood cancer foundations, or to purchase Life Interrupted separately, please visit the Life Interrupted website.
Life Interrupted — A Memoir by Karina Stell
‘I’ve decided to write this book, as painful as it is for me, because I know there are others, like me, who have faced the unimaginable, and wondered how to begin living their lives again... When I hear of any cancer story now, I don’t think of anatomy. I think about what it must have been like the day their life changed. The fear, the denial, the lack of hope that would come and go. I always want to internally say hello to them. To say via my own wounded heart to theirs, ‘I know’.’
Karina Stell’s moving memoir follows her journey from her first cancer diagnosis through to her fourth and final diagnosis and, ultimately, palliation.
She wrote Life Interrupted for those who would find themselves on a similar journey, for the people who love them, and for those working in haematology and oncology - who must never forget the importance of compassion and humanity in their care.
Karina passed away on 27 September 2018.
Her story is her legacy.