FOREWORD

      Mary has been a friend of mine for a long time now and I am utterly delighted that Blessings has been updated and made available for another generation of readers.

      Reading it again by the fire here in Stratford-upon-Avon, I found myself in tears and then laughter in the space of five minutes. My emotions were like April weather: showers one minute, sun the next. Mary’s mother was prophetic when she wanted to christen her daughter Dolores, ‘the child of grief’. Mary wryly writes, ‘I had a rare escape there!’ What a woman she is. Most of us would have crumpled under the cards life has dealt her.

      This book has two incredible strengths. The first is the story. This is not actually a story but raw, real life. It’s not a ‘story’ where you can shut the book and say ‘The end’; it carries on. The second strength is Mary’s skill in communication. I’m always struck by her honesty, humour, tolerance of human weakness and her attitude to suffering. Her philosophy is ‘Everyone suffers, but it’s how you deal with your particular dose of suffering that matters.’

      This book is about a family who outwardly had the lot: breeding, intelligence, education, money, good jobs. Then slowly life began to unravel into a nightmare. The initial sense of overwhelming horror was followed by resentment – ‘Why me?’ – and, finally, ‘Get on with it.’

      I think Blessings should be made compulsory reading for all doctors. When you read on you will understand why I want to include this point in my foreword.

      It’s a great book and I commend it to you with all my heart.

      Sarah Kennedy

      Stratford-upon-Avon

      February 1998

      PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

      I can scarcely believe that it is 33 years since Blessings was first published. At the time, I didn’t write it because I wanted to but because my then-publishers (it was my third book) insisted on it. My editor had read an article of mine which had made a considerable impact in various countries round the world; and he was convinced that the subject – coming to terms with suffering – would resonate with people here too. But though we believed that it would evoke some sort of genuine response neither he nor I had any idea that the book would generate quite so much enthusiasm. Amazingly, Blessings stayed in print for a remarkable 18 years, won the USA’s prestigious Christopher Award for 1979 – (‘Better to light a candle than curse the darkness’), and was translated into 14 languages, before sadly disappearing from view. It is an unbelievably great joy for me that 10 years later it is back in print again. From the many hundreds of letters I received I know that the book struck a powerful chord with people all over the world. This was the period before the era of so-called ‘misery memoirs’, and it was fairly unusual to find a frank and unself-pitying account of a painful experience. Perhaps because this was a story that was screaming in my head to be let out, it emerged like a force of nature, with raw emotion and coruscating honesty. It was this rawness that seems to have spoken so deeply to so many people. Among all the letters, I treasure one in particular which said: ‘You must have had a thousand reasons for writing Blessings, but for the one of them that was me, I wasn’t to say thank-you’. For yours now, new acquaintances have been telling me: ‘I’ve read your book’ and, although over the years I’ve written 15, I never need to ask which book