LOSS OF A PARENT SERIES EP#4 - STOMACH CANCER with Tara Dowling

Welcome back to our Loss Of A Parent Series. 
In this episode, we are joined by our first-ever repeat guest, Tara Dowling, who joined us previously to share her inspiring journey of weight loss surgery.

However, in this episode, Tara shares a completely different story as she opens up about the loss of her mother, Trish, to stomach cancer that spread throughout her whole body just four days after Tara became a first-time mother. Trish passed away at just 58 years old and had been brushed off many times when trying to seek a diagnosis over the years of not feeling well. This adds another layer of complexity to Tara's experience of grief, as she not only had to cope with the sudden loss of her mother, but also the fact that her mother's illness may have been preventable or could have been caught earlier.

Tara speaks about navigating grief while adjusting to being a parent for the first time, and how she has been aching for her mother's support and guidance in those early days, something that never really goes away. She candidly shares what it has been like to raise three girls under three with little to no support, and how the death of her mother has affected different family dynamics both positively and negatively.

Tara explains how the loss of her mother, one of the hardest things one can go through, has given her an inner confidence to know she can get through anything. She also talks about how much her mother wanted to be a nanny and how amazing she would have been at it. Tara also shares how tight and connected she is with her husband and three daughters, and how this loss has affected her parenting.