MY GRANDDAUGHTER'S GIFT

Tammy is certain her granddaughter gets visitors from the other side

- EVA LEWICKI

Tammy Marshall, 44, Newcastle, NSW

Having another child may help you cope a little better,’ the doctor told my heartbroken grandma, Ivy.

It was 1953 and Grandma had just lost her baby, George – a little brother to her daughter, also called Ivy.

Unfortunately, while pregnant with George, Grandma contracted septicaemia, a serious bloodstream infection, which had been passed on to her son in the womb.

At just eight months of age, George died from blood poisoning caused by the boils he’d been born with.

Following her doctor’s advice, Grandma tried to fall pregnant again. A year later, along came my mum, Irene. Strangely, she was born with scars on her body in the same places that George had his worst boils.

‘How can my newborn have scars?’ Grandma cried, but the doctor couldn’t explain it.