Tanya French was born at Wudinna on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia on 2 July 1959 to Harry and Nadia Tomney. One of fi ve siblings, anya had a wonderful childhood growing up on the family farm in the small community of Poochera, South Australia near the coastal fishing community of Streaky Bay. The bay is famous for tuna fi shing and great white sharks. Poochera is now recognised as the habitat of one of the rarest ants in the world, the dinosaur ant, and hence a ‘Big Ant’ has been erected on the outskirts of the town.

Her life consisted of much love, support and normal family events from Sunday family dinners to sporting events like athletics, tennis, netball and more. Hers was what she believed was a most normal and basic country childhood. Tanya and her family returned to Perth in the year 2000. Tanya is the mother of three amazing grown children and Granny Tanny to four beautiful grandchildren. Life was to change dramatically when she lost her second husband to suicide in 1998. Nothing was ever the same again. Her whole life was turned upside down and that of her family ~ it’s called ‘The Ripple Effect’.

From Tanya:

To lose someone you love is a tragedy, but to lose someone to suicide is extremely difficult to cope with. I lost my husband to suicide in 1998. He was 38. Apart from the normal grieving process that comes with death, death by suicide has many more layers of grief that must be dealt with; unless you have experienced that loss, it is impossible for any one person to totally understand the myriad of feelings and emotions on top of normal grieving.

My writing commenced 15 years ago and was just notes initially. It then developed to tapping away on the computer and then to formatting my writings and finally to this book. My story is real and raw. I hope you can feel the pain that my family and I suffered as this is what I want readers to know – the struggle for those left behind after someone’s suicide. I want you to see how someone else can and did get through it. It is also important for me to reach out to those that may be contemplating suicide, so they can feel the pain that it will cause if they choose that road… suicide is not the answer… it is the problem.

A percentage of royalties from sales of this book are going to Lifeline.