SIBBS Newsletter, Spring 2021

SIBBS Newsletter, Spring 2021 | www.tcf.org.uk 5 stuck a storm-blasted, twisted, blackened old oak tree (the sort of tree found in some kind of darkly gothic novel, perhaps) in the middle of my parents’ lovely Hampshire lawn, and surrounded it with large knives poking sharply from the grass, it would have come some way to expressing my horror, my loss, my agony, the gaping, yawning, terrifying absence that had opened in my heart and my life. But that was never going to be very socially acceptable - or very healing, I guess, in the long term! I did, however, long for a place I could go to remember her when I am at home, and so physically distanced from our shared family, the place we grew up, and where she (and I) spent her last, savage days. But I still didn’t want to plant a tree! So the orange tree. This was a piece of driftwood washed up in a flood in our Yorkshire village. One sleepless night I had the idea to paint it orange - George’s favourite colour - and turn it into something sort of sculptural. I like the fact that it’s dead. It’s not pretending to be anything else. It’s twisted and a bit battered, and torn from the tree it was once part of. It’s been through a traumatic flood, and might be miles from where it ‘should’ be. George’s death was so terrible, and I bore witness to that. I don’t want to ‘prettify’ it: I want to honour her courage, and I can’t do that if I pretend it was nice, or draw a veil over it all. And I feel miles away - both from her (and this gets worse, not better, as time goes by) - and from where (and even who) I imagined I would be. So my orange tree is dead. But it’s also (I hope) joyous, because of its vibrant colour, because of the smoothness of its water-worn bark, and because through it, I have been able to speak about my vivacious, bold, defiant sister. I like to think that it promises that even beyond the ugliness of death, there can be beauty and … dare I even think it?... life. “ “ I like to think that it promises that even beyond the ugliness of death, there can be beauty and … dare I even think it?... life