While My Sister Sleeps

A story of hope - a marathon runner in her final race, this time for her life, allows her three family members to face their demons and move on.When a woman in her early thirties, oldest of three siblings and an avid runner, has a heart attack that leaves her brain-dead and on life support her family has to make the painful decision of when to pull the plug.Robin Snow is a world class marathon runner at the top of her game. After studying on a Fulbright scholarship abroad, she returns home to run tracks at inner city schools. The tragedy strikes. At the peak of her career she suffers heart failure while training for a race, and is rushed to hospital where a machine keeps her heart beating. But she is brain dead with no hope of recovery.Her mother Kathryn is devasted. An excellent runner herself she had sacrificed her career to marry and have a family, and lived vicariously through Robin her favourite child. She cannot accept the truth of Robin's condition.Molly, Robin's little sister has grown up in her shadow. Even though she resented Robin's first place in their mother's heart, she loves her sister. As the family starts to disintigrate, she becomes Robin's voice and in doing so finds her own.Jonathan, Robin's brother is a scientist. Emotionally disconnected and wedded to the facts, he is the first to call for the machines to be switched off. But his marraige is in crisis, and the issues raised around Robin's life or death may bring the emotional breakthrough he needs to save his relationship.Robin's father lives for his family, and defers to them rather than voicing his own opinion. More than anyone he stuggles with the definition of 'brain-dead' and the religious and moral issues of the right to life.