In a career spanning over forty-five years, Tracey has worked with children, young adults and older people in Glasgow, the Scottish Borders, Bradford and the Southern Hebrides, first training as a social worker in 1981. Her first daughter, Cora, died in a tragic accident in 1987 when she was fourteen months old.
The Light Shining in Our Hearts was first written in 1991 for Cora’s two siblings. It gently depicts the presence of a deceased child in a family’s life, encouraging children to remember and honour the loss of a child during the grieving process, and replacing the negative thoughts and feelings associated with death and grief with a beautiful hope and a focus on magical remembrance.
Since the death of Cora, a large part of Tracey’s life has been to encourage discussions about death, loss, and separation. She supported bereaved parents in Glasgow in the 1990s as a member of the peer support group The Compassionate Friends. It was through this work that she came to realise no one is ever truly alone in their bereavement. Ever since, she has made it her mission to support others to find a path of light through the darkness – even in the depths of grief.
Tracey’s will be speaking about her book The Light Shining in Our Hearts, in conversation with Victoria Bennett, on Sunday morning at Bruichladdich Hall.