Book

In 2023 my book ‘The Funny Thing About Death’ was published. It’s about my big sister, the writer Annie Caulfield. She died of lung cancer when she was 57. The book is mostly about her life, our adventures together and my life after she had gone, when there were no footsteps to follow.

Never having written a book before, I had no idea what it would be like to have people read my book. I never actually thought about people reading it. If I had, I may not have been quite so honest. The result is that strangers now know me better than friends who’ve known me for years. And I want these strangers to know how much they have helped me.

In the foyer of The Lights Theatre in Andover, a woman I’d never met before was standing in front of me, crying. She’d just been to see my tour show. It’s a comedy show and she was crying. But not with laughter. As I leant in to give her a hug I thought, “I must be the worst comedian in the world, this is the exact opposite of my job”. I’ve been making people cry at comedy shows, I didn’t see that coming. And it’s made me quietly happy. Which makes me sound like a sociopath but there’s a sort of gentle joy in sharing sadness.

I hadn’t realised that selling the book after tour shows and talking at book events would mean that I would meet so many people living with a similar loss and in many cases, a greater loss, in the league table of loss – a partner or a child.  Over and over again, sharing that moment together, just saying our grief out loud to each other, sometimes hugging, sometimes laughing through snotty tears, just a few intense exchanges in towns and cities up and down the country. It’s been unexpected and wonderful. Each time it’s unique. I’m grateful to everyone that thought “Fuck it. I’m going to tell her my story”. I’m so glad that you did.

Connecting through grief at book events has been so unexpectedly  helpful, we are all experts on our own grief and I’ve learnt something at every Q & A.  At my very first book event a man unlocked my dreams. Which sounds like he’s some dream whisperer/weirdo/shaman. He wasn’t, although he was beautifully eccentric in his dress; a mustard waistcoat, a turquoise paisley bow tie, a big open smile and a waxed moustache. He asked me if I dreamt about my sister Annie. I told him that I didn’t dream about her, and that I thought it was odd that I didn’t.  At the end of the book I had written about the one, solitary dream I had had about her.  He told us that he often dreamt about his mother and said how much he enjoyed these dreams, that it was like she was visiting him. He didn’t mean in a spiritual seance weird way, he’d just wake up happy to have spent time with her. 

Soon after that conversation I started dreaming about Annie regularly. Sometimes they are sad and confusing, where you have to realise again that they’ve died, but sometimes I get the nice, comforting feeling that he was describing.

When I started writing the book, it was important to me that more people got to know Annie. I put in some extracts from her work so they could hear her voice. She just seemed too big a personality to disappear, so the best thing is hearing people say how much they liked Annie. Saying they wish they’d met her. I can hear Annie cackling with pleasure “Of course they like me, why wouldn’t they?” 

Why wouldn’t they indeed. 

She was my favourite person. 

But the best consequence of writing ‘The Funny Thing About Death’ is that some of you have told me that you went online to get some of her books and have been reading her work. Nothing would please her more than that. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has read my book and everyone who has said it helped them; everyone I’ve met in the Grief Club. 

All royalties from the book are being donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.