The first thing I see when I turn on my TV is the aftermath of a missile strike on an elementary girls’ school in Southern Iran. Man’s inhumanity to man numbs my senses and compounds my grief. 

I am the third of five siblings, (3 boys and 2 girls). My eldest brother, a drummer like my dad, was on tour in Europe last summer. He returned home with severe stomach pains. He went to A&E. They kept him in overnight and ran a series of tests and scans. A week later he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and a week after that, he was gone, aged 61. 

When mum passed away in 2008, my middle brother turned to the bottle to deal with the pain of her loss. His addiction led to a stroke which left him with mobility and speech issues. He got by with a walking frame and he had live-in care. After a while, he started falling over and banging his head, so we moved him into a specialised nursing home where he subsequently caught pneumonia. He spent most of last year in hospital. I visited him at Christmas when I was home for the holidays. He passed away a fortnight later. He was 60.  

My younger brother was sacked after 20 years working for a well-known courier company. His boss caught him drinking while “working from home”.  He is 56 and has moved back to the family home to save money and look for a new job. We always knew he was partial to a drink, but unbeknownst to us he became a full-blown alcoholic during Covid. All the classic tell-tale signs are there: empty whisky bottles in the bin, half-drunk glasses of whisky dotted around the house and falling over sloshed in broad daylight. To make matters worse, he has radicalised himself online. I knew he was a fan of Tommy Robinson and Donald Trump, but we were always able to have a civilised conversation despite our political differences. That was before. Now, when I challenge his (far-right / xenophobic) views he dismisses me as a “woke lefty” and flies into a fit of rage. The atmosphere at home is toxic – everyone is walking on eggshells, - the sense of dread is palpable.

My dad, bless him, is 84. His hearing has started to play up, but he says rather that than Alzheimer’s. Following a prostate cancer diagnosis, he had a nervous breakdown, (I believe due to hormonal therapy treatment and stress), but he is better now, despite spending the last year preparing to lay one son to rest, having to bury two sons, and now contending with the demise of son number three.  

In times of despair, I find solace in poetry: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions!”  ~ (William Shakespeare)

The war drums are beating. One annus horriblis ends as another begins.   

Cappuccino

A Moodscope member