This week I spent an evening with Cancer Research UK at their shop on Bold Street, Liverpool.  As well as promoting my new book Another Way to Fall, it was also an opportunity for my brother to show some of his paintings for the very first time.  The three paintings were created to accompany poems I’d written about my son; my words and my emotions transferred onto canvas.   But I can’t claim it was only my feelings being represented in his amazing pictures.  I wasn’t the only person affected by my son’s death and for that matter, I’m not the only mother to be affected by the loss of a child.

Claire at the Cancer Research UK shop

Having my family there on the night highlighted to me exactly how much Nathan has influenced all our lives.  My brother Chris is a plasterer by trade and art had always been a hobby that he never took too seriously.  All of that changed after Nathan came into our lives only to leave us too soon.  My brother’s art became not only a way for him to direct his own emotions and experiences but so much more than that.  If Nathan taught us anything it’s that life’s too short, too unpredictable and too precious to waste.  Chris is taking his art far more seriously these days and I hope he makes a success of it because it’s undoubtedly another one of Nathan’s legacies.

Chris Valentine and his works of art

The paintings will be on display at the shop for a little while so if you’re in Liverpool then please, please call into the shop.   You’ll find them on the first floor which is where all the second hand books are kept.  You might even find me there, I was checking out the bookshelves and have was a long list of books I want to get my hands on!

If you can’t get to see the paintings in person, then you can always check them out in my previous blogs:

Autumn child – http://wp.me/p2B9JM-45

Golden Thread – http://wp.me/p2B9JM-4k

Where Ocean Meets the Sky – http://wp.me/p2B9JM-4z