AMELIA DONNELLY and THE GOLDEN THREAD
When Amelia Donnelly was halfway through year 12, her big brother James was killed in a hit and run while walking home from a friend’s 21st. Earlier that day, Amelia helped him choose what he’d wear that night and waved him goodbye.
The next morning, two police officers knocked on the family’s front door and life has never been the same since. Despite facing such intense grief at a young age, she went on to study her Bachelor of Education and has proudly taught years one and two for the past 12 years. Due to her own personal experience with trauma, she easily identifies it in others and was driven to support them. But when she scoured the school library’s shelves for a book to help navigate the all-too-often taboo subject of death, she kept coming up blank. So, she wrote her own. Here she shares how The Golden Thread can help young people everywhere better equip themselves with the language and skills needed when facing grief, trauma and loss.
“It was 12 July 2002, that was the day James died and the world changed. I was so overtaken with grief that complete brain fog set in and I simply wasn’t able to attend to any form of learning. I became that student, the one sat in the back of the classroom, daydreaming. And because I’ve been there, I can see it in others a mile away – it’s that skill I put to good use on my teaching rounds while studying my Bachelor of Education.
“I’d see these kids just like me, distracted and disengaged. One day, I approached a young girl who I’d noticed was struggling and asked her how her day was going. She responded with three words: ‘I miss grandma’. In that moment, the concept for The Golden Thread came to me.
“I asked her, ‘have you heard of the golden thread?’ – she said, ‘no, what’s that?’. So I told her, ‘it’s a thread of pure love that connects you to your grandma. While you can’t see, touch or hear grandma anymore, she’s in your heart and you’re always connected.
“The little girl’s mother approached me a few weeks later and told me her daughter’s mindset had completely shifted – she was at peace and better equipped to deal with her grief. It encouraged me to write my own book, something to support young children when dealing with topics like death that has long-been missing from the shelves of school libraries.
“So one day in 2017, I sat down with a cup of tea and wrote The Golden Thread. It was published by Lake Press in 2018 and has gone on to sell more than 2000 copies all over the world. It’s based on my relationship with my brother James, how we used to play together all the time, and about the day he went away. The two main characters hold our middle names, Rosie and Christopher, and the uncle in the story plays the sage – the wise person who represents my own research into mental health and wellbeing, ancient wisdom, reiki and yoga. He offers Rosie insight and ultimately tells her about the golden thread.
“Classrooms are using it as a resource in their mindfulness and wellbeing curriculum, funeral homes are gifting it to families and I can honestly say it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Because the thing is, teachers today are so overrun, that unless they’re supported in the classroom with the tools and language needed to help young children navigate trauma, these kids will slip through the cracks.
“But I’m so thrilled to see a real shift in classrooms today, mindfulness and wellbeing practices are incorporated in the curriculum in the form of belly breathing, body scans, meditation or visualisations. And while some people might struggle to see the relevance, it’s backed by extensive research from the likes of Norman Doidge and Carol Dweck. If the brain is experiencing overwhelm, the person’s ability to listen to, understand and process information is greatly impacted; their mind is in a state of fight or flight. That’s why these practices have their place in the classroom, they activate the relaxation response and better equip children to engage and learn.
“After 12 years of full time teaching, I’ve realised to really make a difference and be of service to kids, taking my love for wellbeing beyond the classroom is where I can have the most impact. I’m so grateful to be working with Lisa Messenger to design a whole range of books, based on the pillars of positive education and positive psychology. Because early intervention is the number one approach to minimise the impacts of mental health that a child might have experienced – I hope The Golden Thread and my future work can play a small part in that for children everywhere.”
The Lowdown
You can find Amelia’s book, The Golden Thread, as well as a wealth of other resources dedicated to building the resilience of the small humans in your life on her website. You can also snap it up at Australia’s leading bookseller, Dymocks Books.
Amelia has also created a meditation for The Golden Thread, available free for parents to download from the website.
