A Sister’s Tribute

[00:00:00] Paula: Welcome everyone to “TesseLeads” with your host, Tesse Akpeki, and co host me, Paula Okonneh. “TesseLeads” is a safe and sensitive, as well as supportive place and space to share, to hear, and to tell your stories and experiences. We at “TesseLeads” get super curious about the dilemmas shaping our future, the future of our guests and our listeners, and included in that is the journeys that our guests are on. Our guest today is Lucy Harrison, and the theme today is “A Sister’s Tribute“, and with that, I want to welcome Lucy to the show. And I know she’s also going to tell us a bit more, or a lot, not a bit more, but because this is “TesseLeads”, which is more personal, she’s going to tell us about herself. Welcome. 

[00:00:59] Lucy: [00:01:00] Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m Lucy. I am many things included in that is a sister to two brothers. And I lost one of those brothers 10 years ago when he was killed by a speeding hit and run driver. So that has been a journey for me and yeah, I guess I’ll talk to you a little bit about our relationship.

[00:01:26] Tesse: You know, Lucy, I’m so pleased that you said yes to coming on “TesseLeads”. When I hear your story and I see how you care for Peter, your brother, who was tragically killed, I just sense the power of what you’re doing through him and your love for him in the world today. Tell us a little bit of how growing up with Peter.  What are your memories of growing up with this super [00:02:00] wonderful icon?

[00:02:02] Lucy: I think I never appreciated that he was a super wonderful brother. First of all, that he was 12 years older than me. So always my big brother, always very protective and a lot of fun. And I suppose growing up, it was difficult at times because our middle brother had learning difficulties and was very challenging to our parents, and very challenging to their relationship. And they, you know, they eventually split up when I was eight, my brother was twenty. And that was a very difficult time. And some of my fondest memories actually were how he tried to protect me through that. And he moved out to live with his friends. Four boys in a house together. And the day he moved out, I remember my mom and I cried and cried and cried because the house felt so empty without him, but we knew it was important. And then [00:03:00] he used to pay me to go to his house on a Saturday and clean, because the house was disgusting for boys. They were gross. And he didn’t want to pay his mom because she might find things that she might disapprove of. But his little sister wasn’t going to grass on him, right? So I would go on a Saturday, and I was a teenager by then, and I would clean the house, and he would kind of come in and out and his friends, and they would tell me what they’d been up to. And then they would usually like take me for like, I don’t know, McDonald’s or something, and give me some money, and it was like a really special time. And then sometimes I would go to the football with them in the afternoon. And actually, we would go and watch Birmingham City together, and every half time, he would say to me, “do you want anything? I’m going to go and get a beer and I would say no, I’m fine”. And he would always come back with the hot chocolate and a crunchy because [00:04:00] he’s like little sister you know, just she has to have a hot chocolate and treats. And yeah he was a really good brother and I look back on those teenage years and he was some real stability for me actually, when our parents marriage broke up and things were not so great.

[00:04:16] Paula: Wow. Every time I hear about Peter, oh my gosh, this is tough but good, you know. When you have such good memories about a sibling that, you know, has passed on. That’s good. That’s really good. And so, you mentioned something about going to his house to clean and finding things that your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to find. I was going to say, what else brings you greatest joy when you think about other stories can you share with us? 

[00:04:47] Lucy: So my brother was very, very clever, but he went, he got into grammar school and he got bullied terribly and he did not enjoy it. And my dad really had a [00:05:00] thing about, he had to stay at grammar school because he had got his place there, so would not allow him to change. And he consequently ended up failing his exams. And he’d got a job that was provisional on him passing his exams and he called them and said, I have failed my exams and this is why, but I’m going to work hard and I’m determined. And they said, okay, we will give you a chance. And so he got his job and he absolutely worked so hard and I thought that was so brave for a young man. But then when I was doing my exams and particularly my A levels, he was really proud that I was doing very well. There was never jealousy or resentment and I got in my A levels, I got four A’s. And my brother, but I remember he, I was on the bus to going at my A level results and I had so many missed calls from my brother and he’s like, have you got them [00:06:00] yet? What are they? And I was like, just leave me alone. Let me go and get them. And when I got those results, he was so happy that he rang his boss at work and said, my sister has just got four A’s. I’m finishing work for the day, because I am going to celebrate with my sister, and he did, he came with all my friends, and we were in the pub in the afternoon, and we had some food, and we had a night out. And he was like, almost like, prouder than my dad. He was so happy, I remember that, because, I looked back and I didn’t appreciate it, but he really showed his love.

[00:06:41] Tesse: I’m choking up, and I’m choking up with emotion, not with the sadness, but with the kind of pride that your brother had in you. He was just a super generous brother who wished you well, believed in you. One of the things that comes to my [00:07:00] mind of the question is as a sibling, as a sister or what would your older self say to your younger self?

[00:07:07] Lucy: Oh gosh, you know, I should have given him a bit more, because he was 12 years older than me. I feel like our relationship was very that Peter gave to me because I was as we got older. You know, he was in my life until I was 27. So I still was a young person. And if he was here now, there’s so much that I could do for him. And so I wish that I could say to my younger self, do something nice for your brother. And I remember just buying him a really kind of silly Christmas present, something horse racing related, and he loved it so much. And it probably cost me a few pounds. And, you know, I wish I’d done a little more for him. He deserves a little bit of what he gave, I think. But yeah. 

[00:07:50] Paula: Wow. Wow. Wow. I wish I had met him. The more you talk about him, I’m like, I wish I had met him. You know, [00:08:00] because there’s so much, as you remember him, I mean, his memories coming alive through conversation. And so, what goes through my mind as I’m listening to you and smiling at the memories, how would you celebrate him? I mean, what celebratory message would you have for him? If, not even if he were here, but just, you know, as he’s looking down, looking at you now, what celebratory message do you have? 

[00:08:27] Lucy: I mean, so my brother loved his friends. He loved his circle of friends and he loved to have fun. That was his favourite thing, you know, everybody together, everybody having fun. Having a laugh, having a dance, have some music on, be silly, don’t worry about what anyone is thinking. And I know whenever I go out with my friends, this is celebrating him. This is what he would want. I especially know because he loved Neil Diamond. And sometimes I go out and Neil Diamond comes [00:09:00] on and Sweet Caroline and I think, huh, this is a message. I know, I almost feel closest to him when I am with my close friends and everybody is really having a good time, is when I feel him closest to me because that would have made him so happy.

[00:09:18] Tesse: Wow. Wow. I can’t help but keep smiling because I feel that I’ve actually met Peter. I’m wondering whether there are any other joyful stories you can share with our listeners? Because I’m just smiling from ear to ear really with this, just this guy, Peter, who was just so full of life and hope and inspiration and yet was so generous and so giving of his joy to others and to his little sister.

[00:09:50] Lucy: He was, and I constantly feel we never appreciated him, and the difficulties with our middle brother . He  was best friends growing up with a boy called Paul.  Paul lived houses down from us. His mom was best friends with my mom. Paul was in our house, Peter was in Paul’s house.  When  they were 18 they got jobs together in the local supermarket to earn some pennies while they were sorting their lives out. And Paul got a car and was driving. Sadly when they were 18, Paul, we don’t really know what happened, but he crashed and he died. My  brother was 18.  I remember my mum waking me in the morning, I was 6 years old, and she said to me, Peter’s best friend has been killed.  I was very sad. This boy was always in our house.  My brother was  his best friend, and he actually did [00:11:00] the eulogy at Paul’s funeral.  He  was 18 years old. We  sat in the front row. It was the first funeral that I went to and my brother did the eulogy. His  parents whose parents were so grateful.  I remember the boys head teacher who became my head teacher later was at the funeral. I remember her going to my parents and saying, wow, you know, that is the most incredible thing that your son has just done to stand there at 18 and do that. And then he never really talked about it much. He always remembered the anniversary. But he had this weird sense of, he used to say, I don’t think I will live long. And we always put it down to, he understood that fragility. And I used to laugh at him and think, what are you talking about? And it’s only since I’ve experienced my loss of him, I can appreciate how hard it must have been for him to lose his best friend at 18 in that way. [00:12:00] And it must have shaped him. It must have made him want to live in the moment. It must have made him generous and fun, but I was too young at the time that it happened to understand that. 

[00:12:12] Tesse: Yeah. You were young. You were young and my heart goes out to you, because when we are young as people, life has a different dimension, a different dynamic to it. But Lucy, I actually have a personal thing with you and it started from the very first moment I met you. First on Zoom and then in person, and that’s the warmth you exude. Your empathy, your compassion, your care. So I’m going to do a little bit of a switch as well, because we’re talking about a sibling’s love. What I see is, I see that sibling’s love reflected in how you bring siblings together to honour their sibling. You say a bit about that, well, you know, your passion for sibling support, for sibling care, for [00:13:00] sibling compassion. 

[00:13:01] Lucy: So I’ve done the support groups for RoadPeace in the West Midlands and West Mercia regions for several years. I love doing those and they are open to all relationships. But gradually as time has gone on, I have realised that we have such a low number of siblings in those groups. When siblings did come in, they perhaps were a little bit overpowered by parent loss or partner loss. And those are still very, you know, no one loss is worse or easier than the other. They are all terrible. I just felt like we needed a space for siblings because, there was just such a low number reaching out for help. And I thought, but there must be so many out there. And so I spoke with Belinda, who’s the support services manager at RoadPeace, and we sort of thought about it and then yeah, okay, we’ll do a pilot. And we really did not know. We got a lot of people sign up, Tesse included, and it was [00:14:00] such, I think the first meeting, it was such a beautiful space. It’s a sad space. You know, every sibling is there with heartbreaking loss, somebody that has been taken far too soon. You know, some of the siblings we have in that group, they are talking about losing a sibling who’s 18 or 19, you know, barely begun life. And there was a bond, I think, there was a bond very quickly. And it is a space for our siblings, and it is a space to get a break, because I think the siblings take everything on. As an adult sibling, your sibling is killed, you want to protect mom and dad, if you have mom and dad. You want to protect your sibling’s partner. You feel that your grief is less valid. You don’t have a kind of designated amount of time that your work are going to provide you to be off because they don’t see it as a parent, a partner, or a child. Or you feel like you’ve moved out and you haven’t lived with [00:15:00] your sibling for years. So maybe they’re not in your daily life, but it’s still a huge impact, and we just needed a space to acknowledge that really to say it’s valid. To say that you will hurt, this will hurt probably for many worse than anything else you will go through. And you have this space that you can come and you can talk honestly, and no one is going to judge you. No one’s going to tell you get over it. Your grief is less than someone else’s. You need to think about someone else. This is a sibling space and the sibling relationship counts. It was a pilot, it was a trial, but it’s because of the people that came, like Tesse, like, I don’t know, Sam Poynton, Abi Brooks, Edwards, Lizzie, Emily, there’s so many, Janice, there’s so many of them. And they have made it beautiful. They really have. 

[00:15:49] Tesse: But you know, you held it. The whole initiative that a woman has set up called, called “Holding Space Centre”. You held that [00:16:00] space. You created that space and people came in and inhabited it. And you make it safe because you facilitate it. And one of the things that I really, really love from the bottom of my heart is how unconditionally accepted people feel, and how from the ache of people’s heart, they support each other in spite of the ages, even though most people are young. I’m the mama of the group and I’m very happy to be mama Tesse. Very, very, very happy. I embrace it. But actually what I find there is a reflection of value and worth and respect for each other in the midst of very, very deep loss. And dare I say, Lucy, that a lot of that leadership comes from you because you mirror, you actually mirror that. So Paula, what comes to your mind as we talk about Lucy, as a sister, and her care for her brother. 

[00:16:59] Paula: You [00:17:00] mentioned, Lucy, how the sibling group was a pioneer group. You notice that the more attention seemed to go to the partner, or the parents, and not so much the siblings. Is this something that now, I mean, it’s like, how many years have you been doing this? If you don’t mind me asking?

[00:17:21] Lucy:  The sibling group is about a year and a half now, something like a year and a half. It’s still our baby group. 

[00:17:29] Paula: And what stories have you heard from people who have become part of that sibling group? I know Tesse is part of it. Of course you’re part of it because you’re the pioneer, you came up with it. But what other stories can you tell us without, you know, spilling any confidentiality? How else have people been helped? 

[00:17:49] Lucy: So we hear from siblings who were bereaved years ago, and I mean, over 50 years ago, in some cases, and never had a space to [00:18:00] talk about it. And so they’re coming now at a point that is much later in their life. And having that space for the first time, and almost being able to acknowledge that loss for the first time, and that’s really humbling actually. And they act as a kind of beacon for the rest of us, really. And here is someone that has survived life, that has navigated life without their sibling, but of course, even now, they still feel the loss, and that’s quite beautiful to have them there and what they offer. And then we hear from siblings who are in the midst of their studies or their career and they’re really knocked off course by the loss and they have to change. They have to adapt. They have to be resilient and accept that maybe their path is going to be very different now. People that were at university studying and they have to accept that they just can’t do what they first set out to. And that’s powerful. [00:19:00] And we hear from siblings who are almost at breaking point, dare I say, because they’ve sort of been told by those around them that your loss does not matter as much as someone else’s, so they bury it and they hide it and they feel that they can’t express that and they bottle it up. And with that kind of grief it eats you from the inside. And so there is so much there and everyone’s loss, you know, it’s individual to them, but we have bonds, similarities. And what you see, and what I’ve seen in some of my other groups, but what I think I see more intensely with the siblings is people come in and it’s as though the weight of the world is on their shoulders and then they can breathe, and their shoulders can go back a little bit. And it’s purely because they’re being told, we understand. [00:20:00] We understand, and you can feel what you feel and that’s not wrong, and I think it’s beautiful. And Tesse brings, you know, she says she’s the mama Tesse but let me tell you, Tesse brings so much wisdom to that group. Every time Tesse speaks, it is articulate and thoughtful and just so, you know, meant from the heart and sums things up and she just brings this, you know, she talks about me holding this space, but it’s all about the people that come into that space. And Tesse brings so much beauty to that group, so you know. 

[00:20:38] Tesse: You have brought, and cut to this sister’s love and that sister’s love it’s about your middle brother. It’s about your older brother. It’s about you and what a sister can be or a brother can be. My personal story is you’ve taught me a lot about love, period. But also about valuing those [00:21:00] in the family, brothers and sisters in the family, and knowing that we only have now to do that. We only have now, we don’t have tomorrow, we don’t know. And in your tribute to Peter, I’m sure he’s very proud of his sister. 

[00:21:18] Lucy: I hope so Tesse. I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll see him again and I hope so. I hope so. I, you know, owe him so much and so, I don’t know, sometimes people say you should take a rest or whatever, but I know that for the rest of my life, I will do what I come to work for him in his memory.

[00:21:41] Tesse: Yeah, what other things are you doing to celebrate Peter this year? Because this is a big year, isn’t it? It’s 10 years celebration, isn’t it? 

[00:21:48] Lucy: It’s scary, you know, because some days it feels 10 years. You feel the distance, you think, oh, I haven’t heard him laugh in 10 years, wow. And other days it’s, two minutes, [00:22:00] you know, you think I can recall it like it was yesterday, but we are going first. I’ve said my brother loved horse racing, so we are going to Cheltenham. I’m going with his friends, which is going to be emotional, because whenever I’m with his friends, I always sort of expect him to walk in and it’s a reminder that he’s not going to. But be with his friends, hopefully it will be a really fun day. That’s definitely something he would approve of. I love to write poetry, so I’m going to try and write something to mark the 10 years, and to maybe try and sum up some of what us siblings feel. And I’m trying to embody a little bit of his live in the moment type personality. I’m not always great at that, but I certainly had some fun times with my friends this year. Yeah, I had a weekend in Butlins with my two best friends and it was, in many ways, so cringy. But we laughed [00:23:00] so much, and we joked so much, and he would love that. So, yeah, and I paid for that with some money that actually came from him, which made it very special. 

[00:23:10] Tesse: Wow, wow, wow. Paula, you’re pensive. 

[00:23:16] Paula: Yeah, I’m thinking, thinking about so many things. But, did I hear you say you prayed for him with someone that made it very special? 

[00:23:25] Lucy: Oh no, sorry, I paid for the weekend. 

[00:23:27] Paula: Oh, you paid for the weekend. 

[00:23:29] Lucy: Yeah, with something from him. But I do pray. I do pray for him, actually, most nights. 

[00:23:36] Paula: Yeah, and on that note, I mean, Tesse says I’m pensive because I’m thinking of so many siblings I know who have lost their siblings. I don’t know whether it makes any difference whether you came from a two sibling or a multi sibling family. It’s still a loss. And so, you know, Lucy, thank you so much for what you are doing, what you have done, [00:24:00] and what you continue, you know, to do. Because as you said, siblings do get left behind many times, and it’s important to remember them because they’re lost is different, but it’s still a loss. And so that’s why we do “TesseLeads” because your precious stories and life matter. And so we always encourage our guests to share them with us and let them know that they are supported and nurtured and that they’re never alone. These stories will reach so many hearts because it’s not if, it’s when, somebody, we are going to lose someone. And so for our listeners, we ask that you head over to “Apple Podcasts”, “Google Podcasts”, well we don’t do Google Podcasts anymore, but we do”Youtube” and ” Spotify, or anywhere you listen to a podcast and please, click, click, subscribe. We also ask that you share it with your friends, because these stories do matter. [00:25:00] And if you have found “TesseLeads” helpful, and in particular, this episode, please let us know in your review. And if you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, we ask that you send us a note. And last but not least, if you’d like to be a guest on our show, “TesseLeads”, please head over to our website, which is “www.tesseleads”, to apply. Thank you so much, Lucy. I know lives have been changed listening to this. 

[00:25:32] Tesse: Oh, I’m telling you, when I talk about Lucy, I think of his sister’s love. Lucy, thank you for telling your story. 

[00:25:40] Lucy: Thank you for allowing that. It means a lot.