"This harrowing account of unthinkable maternal loss is affectingly raw, and ultimately inspiring."
Aching with a mother’s ceaseless love for her children, Julia Engelhorn’s Precious Scars will break your heart and heal it, as the author shares the unthinkable loss of her three-year-old twins, and how she moved through the visceral pain of grief to the hope of healing.
In the introduction, the author refers to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with golden glue, explaining that “the philosophy behind it is to value the beauty of the broken object with its imperfections, to celebrate, not hide them.” It’s an ethos she’s adopted to find a way to survive and find strength in the wake of her twin three-year-olds being murdered by her ex-husband — “the scars I carry with me, inside me, are a reminder of what I have survived. From the broken pieces of my old self, something new was created, just as beautiful, but different.”
After sharing how she and her ex-husband Mario met in Spain, fell in love, celebrated their wedding at her family’s restaurant in St Moritz, their son César was born in July 2009. From then, Julia notes, their relationship began to change, “though I didn’t realise it at the time.” Living largely apart, with Mario in Barcelona and Julia in Cape Town, she falls pregnant with their twins, but soon realises she wants a divorce.
Following their protracted, fractious split, during one Easter holiday, Mario invited Julia to collect the children early. “Pick up a knife and kill me with it because I am going to kill you,” he orders, before telling her “the kids are dead.” While César is safe, Julia sees he’s killed their twins, Octavia and Maximo.
Truly affecting, Precious Scars takes us through Julia’s unimaginable pain and loss with brutal honesty and much grace as she shares her journey to healing — a journey that many readers might take hope and sustenance from.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Other Genres: |
"In the beginning, I lived day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. I was pleased at the end of the day, to have survived, more or less. Now I know, I am strong. Life continues, for which I am glad."
For Julia Engelhorn life divides into the Before and After.
There was a time Before, when her life was filled with the joys and struggles of parenthood, when she was run off her feet trying to take care of a seven year old and three year old twins Octavia and Maximo. And then there was a time After, when her world was encased in darkness, when there was only one child left and she had become a member of a club that no one wants to join.
On 6 April 2016 Julia went to pick up her three children from the rental home of her ex- husband Mario Deus where he had been taking care of them over the Easter holidays. Although it had been a difficult couple of years, Julia hoped that now the divorce was finalised they could get their relationship on a better and more stable footing for the sake of the children. Nothing could have prepared her for what happened that day.
On arrival to the house, Mario told her to pick up a knife because he intended to kill her. When she asked what was happening he said that the twins were dead. Julia's world shattered in that moment, she ran to the bedroom where she thought her children were asleep, only to find their lifeless bodies.
This is the story of her Before and After - a story of healing after unimaginable loss. Precious Scars is Julia's inspiring story of how she put herself back together again after being broken apart by unthinkable loss. It is about finding a way through impenetrable grief and learning to love, laugh and sing again.
"The scars I carry with me, inside me, are a reminder of what I have survived. From the broken pieces of my old self, something new was created, just as beautiful, but different."
Precious Scars features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, True stories of heroism, endurance and survival, Coping with / advice about death and bereavement, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, True stories: general, Coping with / advice about personal, social and health topics, Family and health, Health & Fitness, Self Help and Personal Development
Precious Scars is available in Paperback
Precious Scars was written by Julia Engelhorn and published by Mirror Books
Precious Scars has 272 pages
£8.99
