Life With Ferris: The Epilogue

“The Epilogue" by Laia Abril does not look like a normal book. It does not tell a normal story. The front cover is a high school senior class picture of a woman, but her face is blocked out. The photograph on the back cover is of the same woman in seventh grade, again with her face blocked out. The woman is Mary Cameron Robinson, Cammy to her friends and family.

Inside the pages, Ms. Abril brings the reader into the life of a family devastated by loss and grief. With the turn of a page, the reader is transported right into the life of a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life, her body ravaged by years of eating disorders.. 

Jan Robinson, Cammy’s mother, calls the fact that a photographer from Spain told her family’s story “an act of God.” Laia had an eating disorder herself and was searching for an American family who had lost a child due to eating disorders to document. (Eating disorders are much more prevalent in the U.S.) She found the MCR Foundation, the foundation Jan started for the prevention of eating disorders after Cammy’s death, online, and after speaking with Laia on the phone, knew Jan was the ‘real deal.’ 

Laia came to Lookout Mountain from Spain. It was not a quick visit; Laia stayed with Jan and Wejun Robinson for almost two weeks, and spent every minute with Cammy’s family and friends. She read Cammy’s diaries and letters, and talked to people who had known her well. Laia spent time with Ashley Yates Martinez, Katie Stout, Dr. Jean Cates, Sally Haynes, Jenny Bentley Watson, Lowndes Robinson and Anna Carroll Phillips among others. She took their pictures, and pored over letters from Cammy they had saved. 

“The Epilogue” is a collection of photographs that bring the reader to her knees. There is a picture of Cammy as an infant curled up with her little brother, Tommy Robinson, under a gingham checked blanket. Her rosebud lips are slack with sleep. Her mother remembers taking that picture like it was yesterday. 

There are two letters from Tommy in the book. In one to his parents in 2013 he writes, “God has dealt you a cruel hand. Such is life. I think the highest measure of a family is how they grow and persevere through adversity…It’s sobering to think how far we have come and what has happened these past eight years. All of it has happened because of your character. You picked yourselves up, honored your fallen children and taught your only remaining child [Jan and Wejun lost their first child shortly after his birth] how to be a man and raise a child of his own.” 

In another letter to his sister before she died he writes, “Cammy, I know you can beat this!...I want you to promise me that you will beat this disease…I love you more than you know, and more than I show.” 

These documents aren’t copied flat on a page, but tucked in the pages of the book. As the  reader flips the pages, these intimate letters and other personal documents make one feel like they are eavesdropping on this family’s intimate circle. A birth certificate. Infant foot prints. A report card. A death certificate. 

It is impossible not to feel the pain and frustration and sorrow that this family knows.
And it’s also impossible not to feel their love and perseverance in the most heartbreaking circumstances. 

Instead of letting their lives be mired in grief over their loss, this family chose to live. The MCR Foundation’s purpose is to prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else. Tommy asked his wife, Kristin, to marry him on the day of his sister’s death. “We need something happy to remember on this day,” he said. To that end, Tommy and Kristin’s daughter, Sybil Bird Robinson, was born on her aunt’s, Mary Cameron Robinson, birthday, to the hour.  

Sybil’s brother, Jack, is just like Cammy, according to Tommy. He is mischievous and sweet.
Tommy acknowledges his family’s pain, but embraces joy in this life.  

“In daily life, there is a new turning point, where we can talk about it and it’s not going to turn into a sad thing, we turn it into a celebration, thinking about: ‘This is what she would do, this is what she liked. We can laugh,’” Tommy said.