About the book 

On 12 May 2010 both Marieke Poelmann’s parents were killed when an airliner crashed near Tripoli. They were on their way home from a vacation in South Africa. Marieke was twenty-two at the time. She had recently started a career in journalism and suddenly found herself on the wrong side of the news. What happened next was overwhelming: police liaison officers, victim assistance, banks and insurance companies all lined up at her parents’ doorstep. She found herself sharing responsibility with her older brother Boris for their handicapped brother Sandor, who had a brain tumour when he was eleven years old. Not to mention the immense sense of loss and grief that presented itself, which Poelmann describes incisively. The plane crash put into a wholly different perspective Marieke’s childhood fears, her memories of her brother’s illness and her family relationships.

Watch Marieke share her experience in this TED-Talk