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Cara

A hope and a future

Fighting for your child

CARA
A hope and a future
By Rhona Tolchard
IVP. 179 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 1 844 744 305

When I read through this book I wondered what I would do in the same circumstances?

Cara is an amazing but disturbing book by a mother whose first child was born with brain damage. Beautifully written, we are taken along with her uniquely every step of the way, from the elation of first holding her beautiful child to the realisation that all was not well, and the well-meaning but cold information which came from the medics felt, to this new mum, like gratuitous cruelty. The system does not come off well in this account, with its decided lack of humanity towards the new parents.

There is an interesting comparison of two systems — conventional versus alternative medicine, the alternative giving a greater quality of life for brain-injured children after the conventional has been able to save the life in the first place, but then seems to be less interested in trying to make their lives worth living.

The parents’ fight for Cara’s rights does not stop at her medicine, but many times they prepare their case for Cara’s rights as a person who needs therapy and a tailor-made education to bring out the best in her, only for the local authority to dismiss this and just offer her a place where her basic needs were met and sleep encouraged. What with this battle, and the problems of getting funding to adapt the house for a growing child with complete disabilities, I was left wondering how anyone could go through so many disappointments and yet be so determined to fight on against the System. Staying within their church helped and held them together during the hardest times.

Rhona Tolchard is continuing to work for the rights of severely disabled children after her experience.

There is a nice use of Scripture dotted throughout the book as the events and difficulties unfurl, and the understanding that ‘it is always crucial to look for God’s hand in every circumstance and to seek his perspective in order to understand and overcome’. I also liked the comment that this account was ‘an encouragement to oddballs everywhere that God has a place for everyone’.

Jean MacGregor,
pastor’s wife in Ipswich, and Mum to four grown-up children