Cleo: How an uppity cat helped heal a family

This book from ex pat Kiwi writer Helen Brown has been on the best sellers list since it was published and it’s easy to see why. This is Helen’s account of how an ordinary family copes with the unimaginable loss of losing one of the children - nine year old Sam is run over and killed while racing to take an injured seagull to the vets. Helen’s reaction to the death of her son is frighteningly raw - only someone who has had to suffer such a dreadful loss would ever fully understand the pain but she does a good job of giving an insight to the rest of us of how parents endure. She is also honest about how she and her husband failed each other during that terrible time - it’s little wonder many marriages fail as a result of the stress of losing a child and the Brown’s marriage was already under pressure. It must have been a lonely time for the two of them as they tried to cope with their own pain and help Sam’s younger brother , Rob, deal with his grief. In the end, it was the arrival of a little black kitten - a kitten Sam had chosen as his birthday present before he died - that helped the family pick up the pieces. Cleo lived to a ripe old age and became the lynchpin of the family, helping them deal with break ups, new beginnings and more pain than any family should have to bear. Heart warming and life affirming.

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