Compassion, Autumn 2020

Autumn 2020 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 17 A Broken Heart Still Beats by Anne McCracken and Mary Semel This isn’t a new book but it’s one I love and, in fact, I like it so much I bought my own copy. Then, at a recent zoom meeting for TCF volunteers, I recommended it as a good one to read and I was amazed at the feedback I received. It’s been one of my favourites for a long time but I had no idea how many other people count it as a favourite too and that made me want to review it so that others can enjoy it. I have three or four copies in the library which I can send out on request. This book is an anthology put together by two bereaved mums and they’ve searched through history and literature to find ‘nuggets of gold’ from writers who had ‘hiked this territory before us’. The book is arranged into chapters with titles like ‘Thunderstruck’, ‘Parents Lost in the Storm Together’ or ‘We feel Like Aliens in the World’ and, after a brief statement from one or both of the authors on why they needed to explore that particular thought, there is an amazing collection of poetry and prose which illustrates and throws light on it. I have the book in front of me now and it’s a bit like being at a wonderful feast and not knowing quite where to start. I’ll try to give you a little taster so you can have some idea what’s on offer by giving some examples of what is contained here. The first thing that catches my eye is Mark Twain’s thoughts from his autobiography about the death of his daughter Susy and then the piece he wrote for Harper’s magazine after his daughter Jean died. He marvels at the fact that a man can ‘receive a thunder stroke like that and live’. A little bit further on you find the lyrics from Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’, written after his son, Conor, died. We have a poem written by Robert Frost who suffered the death of four of his children and we have extracts from the diary of Anne Lindbergh whose baby son was kidnapped and murdered. There’s fiction here too from authors like Anne Tyler, whose novel ‘The Accidental Tourist’ is an excellent exploration of a father’s life after the death of his son, an only child. There are also extracts from the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and William Shakespeare, works that were obviously influenced by the deaths of their children. There are also pieces giving the thoughts of politicians, like Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, after their children had died. There’s a chapter for siblings too with contributions from bereaved siblings like Siegfried Sassoon, who wrote about the death of his brother in 1915, and there’s a lovely piece by Richard Hoffman who only really understood his parents’ grief at the loss of his two brothers when he became a father himself. I could go on for pages without scratching the surface of this treasure trove, which is great for reading through or dipping into and is the perfect companion for the wee small hours