Today is ten years since my youngest brother, Edward, died. He died just before 7 a.m. at La Maison de Tara in Geneva, accompanied by Grace, the veilleuse de nuit. For a long time afterwards, when I later came to work my own shifts at the hospice, Grace would greet me with tears in her eyes and talk readily about Edward, and about the many rich conversations they shared through the night when he couldn’t sleep. As I was writing this piece, in the middle of the night, I sent Grace the above photograph of the two of them to ask if I might include it with this piece. Her reply arrived while I was still writing.¹

Today also marks ten years since David Bowie died. There is far more attention given to David Bowie than there ever will be to Edward, but I want to ensure there is at least this piece about my brother. Even though it cannot be only about Edward. How could it be, with all that has happened since?

Ten years is a long time to live alongside an absence. Long enough for life to reorganise itself around it. Long enough for loss to be carried internally, rather than needing to be constantly named aloud, as is so vital in the early days, months and years. And yet ten years is still close enough that Edward’s presence is keenly felt — as heart-mind memory, alchemised into sweetness, and alive in my body, in my ways, in my days.

Edward’s death reshaped our extended family in ways that have never fully settled. Sibling loss does that. It alters how we speak about the family and about that time. It alters how generations line up. It alters how cousins engage, with a significant pillar now missing. It alters how friends of the family connect — or not. It alters how belonging is felt — or not. The effects ripple outward through the years. Nothing gets resolved. It doesn’t need to. But you do have to learn how to live with it.

Edward was a father and a husband as well as a brother. Today, Alex, Izzy and Nina are very present in my heart. Their relationship with Edward continues in its own way, on its own terms, and I hold them all with a great deal of love and care.

And of course, my parents. I can barely begin to imagine.

This year, Edward’s anniversary arrives alongside another devastating loss in our family. At the end of 2025, my eldest brother James died by suicide, following a short period of acute and overwhelming distress. I have chosen to write very little about James’s death, guided by love and respect for his daughters, and by the complexity of what unfolded in his final weeks — complexity that gnaws at me, particularly in the middle of the night.

Edward and James, my youngest and my eldest brother, now jostle for space alongside one another in my inner life. They were very different men, very different brothers, and different presences in our family. Their deaths were very different, as are the griefs associated with them. Both deaths have radically changed — and will continue to change — the lives of those who loved them most, including our parents, who now live with the loss of two sons.

Holding more than one major loss at the same time changes how grief behaves. I know this intimately, having lived through four major losses within four years — Don, Edward, Mike and Julia. For a long time, I felt I would not be able to contain any more loss, even while knowing that more would come. I expected the next losses to be Black the dog, or my parents. I did not expect it to be another sibling. This new loss within the immediate family has been shattering.

This is no longer cumulative grief, with losses adding up over time. It is stacked grief — grief squashed in layers, like geological strata, where each loss presses on and alters the others. When a new loss arrives, earlier losses do not stay where we last felt them. The strata shift. Some layers fracture and rise closer to the surface. Others compress or recede. The whole ground becomes unstable, moving like a fault line under pressure. The body registers this long before the mind, or language, can begin to catch up.

Edward’s death was the second major out-of-order loss in my adult life. Other profound losses followed — including the deaths of my husband Mike and our daughter Julia. Each loss carries its own imprint: sometimes heavy, often sad, sometimes unexpectedly sweet.

Today, though, despite the recent earthquakes in the family system, I am choosing to keep Edward at the centre. I honour him as my youngest brother, and remember the ways his presence, and his absence, continue to shape our family and me.

Honouring one person does not require another to fade into the background. Grief does not ask us to choose. It asks us to hold what is true, as honestly and with as much integrity as we can, in whatever way feels right.

So today, I remember Edward.

I will speak his name out loud in the snowy mountains.
I honour his place in our “fratrie”, or sibling order.
I let this day belong to him, and I will make space for him at the dinner table tonight.

And I carry James too, alongside him. In life, James was the older brother, leading the way. Now I find myself imagining the order rearranged — Edward, younger in years but longer in this new territory, perhaps offering his older brother some guidance as he finds his footing.

This is how I live with stacked grief: forever unfinished and unsettled, but held in as much love as this earthly being can muster.

Footnote

¹ Bonjour Emma ! Parfois il y a des transmissions de pensées… je suis réveillée et je pensais exactement à toi et ton frère. La vie fait qu’on ne s’est plus revues mais je ne t’ai pas oubliée…

(Hello Emma! Sometimes there are transmissions of thought… I woke up thinking specifically of you and your brother. Life has meant that we haven’t seen each other again, but I have not forgotten you…)

and later

J’étais bien réveillée à 4h et je regardais la magnifique photo avec ton frère. Je ne l’oublierai jamais, preuve que là “en haut” des “gens” veillent sur nous.

(I was awake at 4 a.m., looking at the beautiful photo of your brother. I will never forget him, proof, for me, that “up there” there are “people” watching over us.)

Grace was the veilleuse de nuit who accompanied Edward through his final night at La Maison de Tara. Now retired, she continues to volunteer in palliative care. Her message arrived while I was writing this piece, after I contacted her during the night to ask whether I might include the photo.

A couple of photos

Edward and his girls, blowing bubbles – at the amazing hospice, La Maison de Tara, which holds life even more passionately than it holds death.

Julia, in one of the trees in the garden at Tara. Cheeky little minx.