The book on suffering

PETER STANFORD pays tribute to the remarkable Mary Craig
The Last Freedom by Mary Craig, Hodder £5.99. Blessings by Mary Craig, Hodder £5.99
MANY MOONS AGO I took it into my head to write a book about multiple sclerosis. My mother has had it since before I was born and so I rather arrogantly decided that my own "insider's view", growing up regarding disability as an everyday and almost unnoticeable part of daily life, would offer a new perspective. The huge file of information I collected still sits on top of the bookshelves in my study. Somewhere along the line I got sidetracked. Or humble. Or both.
I've forgotten most of the interviews I carried out and the books I read for that now long lost project, but one memory remains very clear, inspiring and relevant reading Blessings and talking to Mary Craig. First published in 1979, and now updated with a forward by Sarah Kennedy, Blessings is a classic. For me, and for many of the 200,000 readers worldwide who have bought it, it is the book on suffering, profound, practical and enlightening while never preaching or prescribing. In it Craig tells how two of her four children were born with handicaps Paul with
Hohler's Syndrome (commonly known as gargoylism) and Nicky with Down's Syndrome and how Mary Craig: on the 'A' she and her husband, Frank, coped.
On one level it is the tale of the day-to-day demands of one child who could have little emotional connection with the world around him and of another who would always remain dependent on his parents. Rereading Blessings in the new edition, I am struck once more by Mary Craig's skill in handling a subject that could easily have become chapter after chapter of woe redeemed at the end by a bright but synthetic light of hope. This is a more earthy and therefore a more moving book than that It is about real people with
list of inspiring thinkers recognisable emotions, not plaster saints.
There is a raw quality about Blessings that engages and links its readers with the Craigs. But what raises its head and shoulders above the endless stream of dreary, pious and irritating books that Christian publishers churn out on suffering is Craig's unique approach to the subject. Suffering, she recognises, simultaneously poses the greatest challenge to belief in God and presents our best opportunity to draw close to God.
Mary Craig admits that there have been moments when she has wandered away, but she was brought
up short and forced to reimmerse herself in the spirit of Blessings in July of 1994 when her husband Frank was told that he had lung cancer and had only months to live. The Last Freedom is Craig's journal of those months, an often painfully honest account of watching your life companion slip away amid great pain and suffering.
Again there is a raw quality about her writing: her account of her son Nicky confronting his father's death is unbearably poignant while the image of Mary sitting alone late at night at Frank's death bed recalling their first meetings will remain with me. And again such observations are complemented by a spiritual search that includes the reader.
Suffering is an issue that confronts us all. If you ever feel the courage to confront it honestly, then seize that moment and read Blessings. You may well find it enough. But if you then have the inclination to go on, The Last Freedom is a perfectly judged companion volume. Together, though she would blush at the suggestion, they place Mary Craig in the "A" list of inspiring thinkers of our age. Certainly she has claimed a place in my personal selection.
Peter Stanford's Biography of the Devil is published by Mandarin (E7.99) and will be televised by the BBC in the New Year.