Compassion, Spring 2021

Spring 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 16 Book Reviews We are always looking for people who are willing to review books for us. Please contact Mary at the library (address on back page) if you would like to help in this way. Love in the Present Tense: a bereaved mum’s story by Nina Praske Nina’s 25 year old son, James, died from cancer. She hopes this book, as well as helping bereaved parents, will help health care professionals to understand, and therefore be better able to help, patients and families faced with a cancer diagnosis. Nina’s intention is not to apportion blame but rather to try and make things better in the future. As I’m both a bereaved mum and a recently retired nurse I was really keen to read and review this book myself. As a bereaved mum I found it an absorbing and interesting read. We learn about James’s life, his unique place in his family and the devastating impact of his illness and subsequent death. The author writes as she thinks so you sort of go inside her head as she mulls things over trying to make sense of it all. Many of Nina’s thoughts are, or were, mine too. She writes about how she wanted to die herself, after James died, something so many of us feel but can only say to other bereaved parents. I remember well the horror it provoked in my friends and family so I pretty soon shut up about it until I reached the safety of a TCF group six months later. She also writes about feelings of anger, her worries for her other children, James’s twin brother and his sister, who have to continue to live without their beloved brother, and her ever present sadness even on the better days. One continuing theme is the relationship between parental grief, so called complicated grief, PTSD and the theory of continuing bonds; I find her thoughts on this subject quite fascinating. As a health care professional I wish I’d had this book fifty years ago, before I was let loose to muddle my way through trying to help people in this family’s situation. I had no formal training on supporting gravely ill people or bereaved families and had to learn as I went! Nina makes it quite clear that James’s actual care was very good and it was communication which, time and again, was poor. For me the very worst thing is that James was told he had stage four cancer when he was on his own; he had no idea how ill he was, or that he had cancer at all, and nobody suggested it might be a good idea to bring his dad or his brother or a friend A true storyof loss and grief for all cancer care professionals NINAPRASKE in e present tense