Mending a FAMILY RIFT

For writer Tess Stimson, there’s been one very special thing to have come out of 2020

- Tess Stimson

As I worked my way through writing this year’s pile of Christmas cards, my daughter Lily, 18, peered over my shoulder and asked who ‘Philly’ was, and why I was putting so many kisses. When I told her Philly was my sister – and her aunt – she gasped in astonishment.

‘You’ve got a sister?’ Lily exclaimed. ‘How could I not know that?’

It’s no wonder she was surprised. For decades, there’d been distance, both geographically and emotionally, between Philippa, 47, and me. I never spoke about her in front of my children, and before lockdown, I’d had no contact with my sister for almost five years. The catalyst for this rift – although there’d been bubbling tensions for decades – was our brother Charles’ death.

Although she didn’t know Philly, Lily had loved Charles – known to everyone in the family as Bug – before he tragically died, aged just 40.

I was on holiday in Canada in July 2015 with my husband Erik, then 44, Lily, 13, and my two sons, Henry, 21, and Matt, 18, when I received the shattering call from a doctor at the John Radcliff e Hospital in Oxford to say Bug had suffered a major heart attack and was in a coma.

I caught the next flight and traveled for 26 hours to be at Bug’s bedside. But Philippa hadn’t made the two-hour journey from her home in Brighton to be with him. When I called to ask if she was coming, she said no, she’d find it too upsetting.

Feeling alone

The next couple of days were the worst of my life. It quickly became clear that the brain damage caused by the cardiac arrest triggered by his epilepsy was so severe, Bug would never wake up.