Imagine someone you loved was lying in a coma or was in a permanent vegetative state and that there was no hope of them ever recovering; they would spend the rest of their life unable to move their limbs, go to the toilet unaided or communicate, and either you, or the state, would need to look after them around the clock.

What would you do? Give up hope? Trust that the health authorities could provide the care and support your loved one needed — and that you could afford to pay for that care? Bring them home and look after them yourself? Or go to the courts and seek legal permission to withdraw their treatment so that they could die with dignity?

For Cathy Rentzenbrink and her parents this hypothetical situation became a reality when Cathy’s younger brother was knocked over by a hit-and-run driver while he was walking home late one night in 1990. Matty suffered a serious brain injury and never recovered. He was 16 and just weeks away from finding out his GCSE results, which would put him at the top of his class.

In The Last Act of Love — subtitled The Story of My Brother and His Sister — Cathy looks back on that single shocking event and reflects on how it shaped the rest of her life and the life of the brother she loved so much. She traces the heartache of willing her brother to survive and then realising, years later, that it would have been easier for everyone if he had died.

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