This afternoon my mother, Mona, comes back from Leeds after having spent a week up there in our home town sitting Shiva (mourning) for her younger brother, Ronnie, may his dear soul rest in peace, who has died aged 85 years. At 88 years, Mona is still going strong, surrounded by a loving family and lively group of friends, with a hectic social and intellectual life. She is devastated at the loss of Ronnie, but knew that she has in reality been mourning for the loss of him for a good few years as senility gradually claimed his mind. In Eternal Sparrow I have included a poem written whilst Mona herself was fighting for life a couple of years ago in the Whittington Hospital. The poem is sparse, stark, because I could hardly breathe myself at the time. Her doctors were asking me to decide whether to switch off her life support system, and I had decided not to agree to that. Luckily that was the right decision but, at the time, I didn't know whether I was making it for selfish reasons. I wasn't prepared to take responsibility for my mother's death, and wanted her to stay even if she emerged from her three week coma (following emergency six hour surgery) with brain damage.

Her present love of life and thrill of every new day is a constant relief to me, as you can imagine. I am profoundly grateful to all those spiritual healers in my Soul Therapy circle who joined with her medical team and me in helping to save her life.