Clare Johnston

IF YOU never want to see a piece of foiled chocolate again, you are in good company.

Many sweets were enjoyed in our house over the weekend.

Easter has become yet another excuse to eat lots – yet how many of us view it as the symbol of rebirth it is intended to be?

A recent conversation with Pam Hunter, CEO of Scottish Sports Futures – an organisation dedicated to helping vulnerable young people make good life choices – got me thinking about the idea of hope and new life following loss.

Pam had been a high-flyer in the transport sector but decided on a career change following the death of her ex-partner, aged just 39.

She had met him in a pub in her early 20s. He had been diabetic from childhood and ended up losing his sight at 21 because of the condition.

As there weren’t an abundance of job opportunities for blind people, he was sentenced to a life of unfulfilled potential.

The two had a close bond and Pam soon became both a partner and carer, taking him skiing, rowing, adapting board games for him and teaching him how to read Braille.

But amid all this, she forgot herself. At 5ft 9in, she weighed just six stone, and found herself crying over silly things like being unable to match the edges of sheets up when she folded them. Six years into their relationship, she knew she had to end it. But her partner took the news very badly and attempted suicide days later. It was Pam who found him and called an ambulance. They kept in touch for a few years before she realised the continued contact was doing him no good. Six years later, she learned of his death. He had been drinking and

had fallen over, banged his