8 tcf.org.uk COMPASSION | NEWS FROM THE CATHARINE POINTER MEMORIAL LIBRARY It could have been the hottest, sunniest year on record but, for me, life was cold and miserable and seemingly hopeless. To be honest, the only thing I remember about the weather in 2004 is that it started snowing during Claire’s funeral, something she would have loved. It did make me smile but it also brought the crushing pain of realising she would never make snow angels or snowballs again; never again would I hear her joyful laugh when the white flakes started to fall. In those early days it felt as though my life would never be worth living again but I was wrong and slowly, gradually, life became better, hope entered the picture, and I began to live a good life again. That is very much the theme of one of the books reviewed for this edition of ‘Compassion’ in which bereaved sibling Kay documents how she found her way back from hopelessness and despair to a meaningful life. This made me think about some of the other books we have in the library, written by and for bereaved siblings. The first one that comes to mind is Cathy Rentzenbrink’s ‘The Last Act of Love’ written after her brother Matty was badly injured in a road accident and, after living in a persistent vegetative state for several years, finally died when their parents went to court to have life sustaining treatment, such as artificial feeding, withdrawn. Another very interesting and moving account comes from Clare and Greg Wise in ‘Not That Kind of Love’, subtitled ‘a sister, a brother, some tumours and a cat’. Both books tell us so much about the bond between siblings. ‘The Empty Room’ by Elizabeth DeVita Raeburn is partly her account of her brother Ted’s long illness and eventual death at the age of 17 but it’s also a wide-ranging study of the impact of sibling loss, based on interviews with more than 200 bereaved siblings. A particular type of sibling bereavement is the loss of a twin sister or brother. Joan Woodward has written about that in ‘The Lone Twin’. After her twin sister died Joan always felt like half of her was missing and it was only when she met other ‘lone twins’ that she started to realise how normal her feelings were. In ‘From a Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb’ Timothy Knatchbull has written a very readable and interesting book about his twin brother’s death, his own grief and his quest to meet the men who caused his brother’s death and to try and understand why they acted as they did. News from the Catharine Pointer Memorial Library by Mary Hartley I’m writing this during the last weekend in September and autumn is definitely in the air. It’s cold and miserable and seems to have been raining forever and, thinking about it, that’s an excellent description of my feelings in the first weeks and months after my daughter died.
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