At 12 years old, I lost my 49-year old mother to cancer, some years later my 36-year old brother to a road accident, another brother and a sister to cancer in the following years, and my last brother to heart attack. I recently nursed my last and closest sister through terminal cancer for 6 months, supporting her much older husband through it and afterwards, and now comes the death from cancer of a much loved ‘boyfriend’ from my teen years. I can honestly say that each bereavement seems to deepen and add to the grief of each and every one before it. I’m talking about the deaths of people very close to me, which affected me deeply. The grief of these particular losses definitely does not fade with time, not for me anyway, and I can’t imagine that I’m the only one affected in this way.
