My Brother

Today is the first time I can remember writing the words, “My brother” I think he died when I was about two years old and he was five. I have no memories of my own about him but I do have four grainy photographs. Frustratingly, in two of them his head is turned away from the camera! I know nothing about him as a child. In fact I am still looking for his birth certificate and his death certificate.

I know if he had been born in the same generation as my children he would not have died of leukemia. All I have is a note from the nursing staff who cared for him in St Mary’s Hospital, Stratford (London). I think they were touched by the little boy with curly brown hair and big brown eyes. They cared enough to write…