Raising Tiffany - Portrait of a Special Girl

Raising Tiffany tells the story of a courageous child facing mountainous challenges. A girl who never acquires many of the skills parents take for granted in their children’s development, but whatever Tiffany learns to do is done with such ferocious character, and disarming style, that it is impossible not to admire her. Her determination inspires the desire not to let her down, but to match her courage. Tiffany’s life could easily be dismissed as “tragic”, “devastating”, even. More than one well-meaning observer tries to console her mother during her abbreviated life. But Deborah refuses to accept this, having discovered very early on that the opportunity of raising Tiffany was going to be the great gift of both their lives.

Tiffany’s medical records catalogue her deficiencies: congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, delayed developmental problems, to name but a few. According to the psychologist ‘she’ll never catch up.’ The consultant cardiologist tells Sam and Deborah that their daughter probably won’t live beyond age fifteen. Sustaining Tiffany’s life is punctuated by a series of breath-stopping seizures and failures, made all the more terrifying by her parents’ inexperience: why and what to do? The off-hand and somewhat dismissive response of some doctors and nurses help little to reassure a mother forced to watch an infant turn blue at four in the morning and having to rush half-dressed through the streets for help with three-year-old Oliver.

The recurring episodes force Deborah to learn as much as she could about her child’s many conditions and illnesses. Supremely courageous, and fiercely determined, she questions the medical exclusivity. One-by-one doctors and specialists start to share information; include her in their discussions with a degree of respect; even the most horrifying details.

A turning point occurs in Deborah’s life when a total stranger, sympathizing with Tiffany’s “misfortune”, asks what is wrong with the child. ‘Absolutely nothing. There is nothing wrong with her.’ From here Deborah recognizes finally and clearly that Tiffany is what she must be; and to wish her otherwise is to deny her the opportunity to play her role. This realisation releases her from the sense of victimhood, raises her confidence, and points to the new direction to be taken.

Tiffany’s enthusiastic reaching out to people, to life, banishes misfortune from her space and commands respect and admiration. A neighbour once said: ‘Tiffany may have lacked the words to communicate with others, but with her hands she reached out in ways that said it all.’

As Deborah’s own health fails and fissures develop in her marriage, she becomes increasingly determine to turn deeper and deeper into herself to discover solutions. But her sense of isolation wanes. She develops lifelong relationships she never would have encountered without Tiffany.

The day comes when Tiffany is once more assaulted by her “condition”. The consultant tells Deborah that should Tiffany survive this latest crisis it would be a horrifying and permanent cost to her quality of life. A mother has to make unbearable decisions. Days later, an e-mail goes out to all her friends and the single word in the subject line – TIFFANY – brings a catch to your throat.

Life, we are told, does not end; rather, it leaves one form and assumes another. Sorting, putting away, discarding, physically and mentally, Deborah starts to create a new life for herself. She knows that winter, no matter how harsh, always turns into spring. The third phase of this book is born. What need has been met? What has been learnt? What could others learn? And so, Raising Tiffany moves beyond a memoir and celebration of two individual lives and starts to reach out to others who are going through, or may one day go through, the consuming anxiety and the joys of raising a child like Tiffany.