Dealing with grief

I picked up Fiona’s ashes yesterday. They are sitting on a shelf with the ashes of Louie and Clara. They each have a picture there to help me remember. Fiona is on the left, Louie on the right and Clara in the middle. We all deal with grief in our own way.

Given what happened in Paris ( and Lebanon) this past week, I want to bring your attention to this little gem of a novel.

If you’ve not read it, you should. Especially now. It is a book from a few years back, but it is definitely worth picking up in the aftermath of yet another horrible terrorist attack. It is set five years after the  co-ordinated terrorist attacks around London on July 7, 2005, that killed 62 people.The people in this story are all dealing with grief in their own way, but it is not a very healthy way.

Publisher’s Summary: My sister Rose lives on the mantelpiece. Well, some of her does. A collarbone, two ribs, a bit of skull, and a little toe.

To ten-year-old Jamie, his family has fallen apart because of the loss of someone he barely remembers: his sister Rose, who died five years ago in a terrorist bombing. To his father, life is impossible to make sense of when he lives in a world that could so cruelly take away a ten-year-old girl. To Rose’s surviving fifteen year old twin, Jas, everyday she lives in Rose’s ever-present shadow, forever feeling the loss like a limb, but unable to be seen for herself alone.

Told with warmth and humor, this powerful novel is a sophisticated take on one family’s struggle to make sense of the loss that’s torn them apart… and their discovery of what it means to stay together.

Jamie is a sensitive boy whose new best friend happens to be a Muslim girl. He is trying to navigate a new school, bullies and a father who hates all Muslims. Jamie is left on his own a lot and  wants his family to be whole again but doesn’t know how to make that happen.  It is a tear-jerker, so have a hankie at the ready, but it is also a heart-warmer.

I actually listened to this a few years ago, but it has stuck with me. I must say that it was marvelously narrated by David Tennant. If you like audiobooks, I highly recommend this one.