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