This week marks a sombre anniversary for Northern Ireland, my home.
Many readers will know and understand that Northern Ireland has a deeply troubled past. Troubles borne of sectarian hatred, distrust, unease, and intolerance. The province has endured over three decades of bombing and shooting campaigns. Physical destruction, economic decline and human loss.
Some of you will not understand, because more than thirty years of mindless violence, countless deaths of, for the most part, innocent people, is absolutely incomprehensible.
I have lived there for most of my life, and have yet to understand any of it completely.
At the risk of producing a history lesson, let me briefly explain that Northern Ireland is geographically part of the island of Ireland, but is politically part of the United Kingdom. In its simplest form, the root of the conflict played out in Northern Ireland stems from the fact that certain, extreme, factions staunchly protect their British identity (Loyalists), and other equally extreme groups work by whatever means they consider necessary to bring about a United Ireland (Republicans), free from British involvement. Each side claims their version of history as the reason their position should prevail.
I use the present tense because, although peace has been achieved to a large extent in Northern Ireland right now, it is uneasy and delicate at times.
A mistake often made by outsiders is to equate Republicanism with Catholics, and Loyalism with Protestants. To do so is naive and ignores the position of the majority of people in Northern Ireland, more moderate in their views and whose priority above all others is peace and an end to violence and suffering.
The political environment in Northern Ireland is extremely polarized, and the vocal minorities on both sides historically impeded progressive compromise attempted at many junctures by more moderate politicians.
In 1994 a ceasefire was called by the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army) – followed not long thereafter by a ceasefire proclaimed by Loyalist paramilitary groups. Hope abounded and a collective sigh of relief was released by those of us in the North as we watched political talks actually produce results, accompanied by the promise of a departure from the bomb and the bullet, a brighter future ahead. This political process attempted to put into action the will of the moderate majority in Northern Ireland, those of us who wanted to co-exist with our neighbours – whatever their creed, or political affiliation, in peace. To live normal lives, without fear.
The peace process gained impetus through hard work and negotiations between local politicians, assisted in no small part by the Irish and British governments, and by George Mitchell, sent to mediate the negotiations by President Bill Clinton. There was a palpable excitement among the ordinary people of Northern Ireland that we would emerge from the dark days of violence, and we would do it soon. President and Mrs. Clinton’s visit to Northern Ireland in November 1995 was further proof that we were leaving the sorry past behind, and that Northern Ireland was somewhere worthy of international focus.
In the background however, dissidents, unhappy with what they saw as the ‘sellout’ by Republican politicians plotted and attempted further attacks. Calling themselves ‘The Real IRA’ and ‘The Continuity IRA’, they pushed to carry on the paramilitary bombing campaigns in their pursuit of a United Ireland. They bombed town centres, injuring many and damaging property and local economies. Security forces were successful in thwarting some attacks.
I, like many others, did not consider the Real IRA to be a credible threat. I believed that the Provisional IRA, who by this time were supporting the political process, would keep them in check and that the security forces would have the intelligence and resources to prevent them gaining enough traction to become a credible threat.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
On Saturday August 15th 1998, the Real IRA succeeded in perpetrating the single most horrific atrocity in the history of the troubles. In the process, 29 vibrant, happy, oblivious and some of them tiny, lives – as hopeful as the rest of us for a better future, were obliterated.
Evil, cowardly people without the vision nor the respect for humanity to engage with the people they claimed to represent and work for the greater good, rose once more and attempted to force ‘British withdrawal’ from Northern Ireland. They wreaked havoc in a busy town centre, Omagh, Co.Tyrone. They achieved nothing, except mass destruction and widespread human devastation.
During the troubles, the ‘normal’ protocol for a terrorist attack was a warning to the police, a radio or TV station. You should also know that over the course of the troubles, many hoax bomb threats were also made. People have been evacuated from public buildings and streets - only to learn later that it was a hoax. I've been through it several times myself.
Warnings were called in for the Omagh bomb but the message was either deliberately misleading, or it was misunderstood – I’m not sure it’s ever been determined which. The target mentioned was the courthouse at the top of a hill in the main shopping street in Omagh – [so chosen because it was a building representative of the British Establishment]. In a frantic attempt to usher the public away from the courthouse and evacuate the area – police directed people down the hill, away from the courthouse as fast as they could.
A car packed with 500lbs of home-made explosives awaited them at the bottom of the hill. Unknowingly, in attempting to shield the public, police instead shepherded people toward certain death.
Fourteen women, six men and nine children, two of them babies of 20 and 18 months old, were killed. Not included in the numbers reported, but two little lives I always remember when I think of the Omagh bombing were the twins that Avril Monaghan, one of the women killed, and mother of the 18 month old, was carrying. She was seven months pregnant. All told, 31 lives lost. Catholics, Protestants, a Mormon schoolboy, and visitors from Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, and Spanish exchange students perished.
Hundreds of people were left with horrific injuries, their lives changed forever, along with the lives of those who lost their loved ones. Broken families – their existence left in the same tatters as the buildings of that busy Omagh street.
I was on the first of many return visits to Florida just after this bomb happened, and I brought with me the newspapers to share the story with those whom I was visiting. I shed many tears looking at the 29 faces in those news reports, and I shed them now as I look at them once more. Each one someone’s mother, son, father, brother, sister, daughter, baby… How many more tears have been shed in homes in Omagh, Donegal, and Spain over the last ten years? And for what?
Although the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack, no group or individual has been successfully prosecuted for this crime. Families of the victims have fought tirelessly to have the perpetrators brought to justice, but thus far the campaign has been fruitless.
Civil actions have also been brought but no satisfying result has given these families the sense of closure that one would imagine necessary to help process what has happened to them. I think this adds to the enormity of the tragedy.
The wider implication of the Omagh bombing coming four years after the paramilitary ceasefires was fear once more. The province as a whole was worried that this tragedy would bring more pain and destruction in the form of retaliatory attacks, which was the normal modus operandi of paramilitaries on both sides following such attacks in the past. Mercifully, this did not happen. The Omagh Bomb did not derail the peace process – something which had it happened would have made all the more pointless the lives lost that day.
While there is no doubt that the outrage felt by so many at the scale of the Omagh tragedy accelerated the journey towards lasting peace, ironically, the families of those who died, and those injured are somewhat victimized once more by the peace process. By virtue of the fact that politicians are focused on the future, and leaving the legacy of violence behind, the support from the police, elected officials and government agencies that these families need to secure justice, isn't there. They are pretty much left to push for justice on their own.
This week, ten years on, my thoughts are with the families of the 31 people lost in Omagh on August 15th 1998. I pray for them, and for those so severely injured, physically, and emotionally. I draw inspiration from those who have triumphed over their injuries and loss, and trust that those who still struggle will find the help and healing they need.
I continue to pray for healing in Northern Ireland, where just today three firebombs have been made safe by Army Bomb experts , like I said, peace is uneasy, and delicate.
I pray for the rest of us – that in this age where bombings in foreign lands are reported with alarming frequency, and sadly often as a side story to the ‘main event’ of a sordid Politician’s affair, I pray that we never become blasé about such stories and that we never fail to be outraged by them. To maintain our sense of justice and protest to those whom will listen and take action…
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Charlie
Today is my Grandfather's Anniversary. He died 16 years ago today, at the age of 92. He certainly lived to a 'ripe old age', as they say.
We never called him 'Granda', or 'Grandpa' or any other affectionate grandfatherly term. He claimed it made him sound old. All of his grandchildren called him by his name 'Charlie'.
I wish I had a photo to show you - but they're all in Ireland, and certainly not in digital format. He was a strapping and handsome man with a mane of pure white hair, brushed straight back from his face. Born not in the last century, but in the one before that, he started work at a young age for what was to become the biggest Bank in Northern Ireland. He worked his way up from errand boy, to Chief Inspector. He retired and was called out of retirement twice to lead projects, such was the Bank's respect for him and their acknowledgment of his experience and knowledge. Chief Inspector is a fairly high rank in the Bank, but his rise beyond this was no doubt capped by the fact that he was a Catholic in an environment where all directorships were held by Protestants. This was a product of the political atmosphere, that thankfully (although painfully), has changed to a large extent in Northern Ireland.
He worked for the Bank in a time when a job there was a job for life and for him it certainly was. He retired completely, I believe, well into his seventies. I worked for the same Bank, and although the times had certainly changed and it was no longer a 'work your way up from the bottom' kind of place, it gave me great pride to have been his Grand-daughter working there, and representing the third generation of my family to work for this company. As my own career advanced, I often found myself wondering 'what would Charlie think of me now?' Would he be proud that I had moved up in a relatively short space of time, or would he be shocked that I had done so since he left at a time when women had to leave when they got married, and when they rarely if ever worked on the counter in the branches? I like to think it would have been both, and hopefully a little more of the former than the latter.
But Charlie the Bank man isn't the man I remember. I remember him fondly as the man with the white hair, two pairs of black glasses, one for reading and one for television. The man who sat in a comfortable armchair in front of the fire, often in a zip up cardigan. With a steel comb in his pocket that he would give to us to 'fix his hair'. The man who would patiently let us comb his hair over and over, probably scraping his scalp raw in the process, and never saying a word.
He was very generous and our new Christmas and Easter outfits would come courtesy of him and our Nana. He would lavishly heap praise on us as we paraded our new threads in front of him, fashion show style. He also remembered for many years the praise I gave him for how dapper he looked at my Aunt's wedding, when I was ten years old.
He was an adventurous man and in his eighties flew to the USA with my Uncle and visited both coasts. We have film footage of him touring high above Alcatraz in a helicopter - thrilling for him to have done, and still thrilling for us to watch.
I've read a lot of blog posts recently about people who talk about their Grandparents whom they still see, or sadly whom they've only just lost and I feel happy for them that they have, or have had their Grandparents in their lives for so long. My husband's maternal Grandparents are still alive and very well at the ages of only 78 and 80. However, I feel completely jealous, too. I would love to talk to Charlie now, to Nana his wife, whom we lost 6 years before him. I'd love to know what they think of me living all the way over here in America! What they think of my children?
I still miss them, a lot. My Nana died before her time, from cancer and my mother was only two years older than I am now when that happened. Charlie in his declining years was 'doting' a little and was forgetful. He literally just wound down and passed away peacefully in his sleep, and for that I am very grateful.
I wipe away a few tears now and replace them instead with a broad smile in memory of a great, grandfather.
I love you, Charlie!
We never called him 'Granda', or 'Grandpa' or any other affectionate grandfatherly term. He claimed it made him sound old. All of his grandchildren called him by his name 'Charlie'.
I wish I had a photo to show you - but they're all in Ireland, and certainly not in digital format. He was a strapping and handsome man with a mane of pure white hair, brushed straight back from his face. Born not in the last century, but in the one before that, he started work at a young age for what was to become the biggest Bank in Northern Ireland. He worked his way up from errand boy, to Chief Inspector. He retired and was called out of retirement twice to lead projects, such was the Bank's respect for him and their acknowledgment of his experience and knowledge. Chief Inspector is a fairly high rank in the Bank, but his rise beyond this was no doubt capped by the fact that he was a Catholic in an environment where all directorships were held by Protestants. This was a product of the political atmosphere, that thankfully (although painfully), has changed to a large extent in Northern Ireland.
He worked for the Bank in a time when a job there was a job for life and for him it certainly was. He retired completely, I believe, well into his seventies. I worked for the same Bank, and although the times had certainly changed and it was no longer a 'work your way up from the bottom' kind of place, it gave me great pride to have been his Grand-daughter working there, and representing the third generation of my family to work for this company. As my own career advanced, I often found myself wondering 'what would Charlie think of me now?' Would he be proud that I had moved up in a relatively short space of time, or would he be shocked that I had done so since he left at a time when women had to leave when they got married, and when they rarely if ever worked on the counter in the branches? I like to think it would have been both, and hopefully a little more of the former than the latter.
But Charlie the Bank man isn't the man I remember. I remember him fondly as the man with the white hair, two pairs of black glasses, one for reading and one for television. The man who sat in a comfortable armchair in front of the fire, often in a zip up cardigan. With a steel comb in his pocket that he would give to us to 'fix his hair'. The man who would patiently let us comb his hair over and over, probably scraping his scalp raw in the process, and never saying a word.
He was very generous and our new Christmas and Easter outfits would come courtesy of him and our Nana. He would lavishly heap praise on us as we paraded our new threads in front of him, fashion show style. He also remembered for many years the praise I gave him for how dapper he looked at my Aunt's wedding, when I was ten years old.
He was an adventurous man and in his eighties flew to the USA with my Uncle and visited both coasts. We have film footage of him touring high above Alcatraz in a helicopter - thrilling for him to have done, and still thrilling for us to watch.
I've read a lot of blog posts recently about people who talk about their Grandparents whom they still see, or sadly whom they've only just lost and I feel happy for them that they have, or have had their Grandparents in their lives for so long. My husband's maternal Grandparents are still alive and very well at the ages of only 78 and 80. However, I feel completely jealous, too. I would love to talk to Charlie now, to Nana his wife, whom we lost 6 years before him. I'd love to know what they think of me living all the way over here in America! What they think of my children?
I still miss them, a lot. My Nana died before her time, from cancer and my mother was only two years older than I am now when that happened. Charlie in his declining years was 'doting' a little and was forgetful. He literally just wound down and passed away peacefully in his sleep, and for that I am very grateful.
I wipe away a few tears now and replace them instead with a broad smile in memory of a great, grandfather.
I love you, Charlie!
Friday, October 19, 2007
Serenity and Perspective
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
How many times have I worried until I felt physically sick about issues that are beyond my control? That they are beyond my control, a source of further anxiety.
How many times have people said to me 'Try not to worry', 'Think Positive', 'Put your trust in God'? How hard have I tried to listen to them, but still had that ball in the pit of my stomach, the tight jaw and the headaches because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't let the stress and the worry go?
How many tears have I shed? How much anger have I felt?
Too many. Too much.
I have seen the Serenity Prayer many times. I understand its premise. I know the 'theory' of handing over the worry, but couldn't practice it. Until now.
I've written before about how it feels when doctors tell you that something is not 100% with your baby. An issue that has been present from birth and that needs careful monitoring. It hurts. As someone recently said to me 'it hurts a mother's heart', and it does.
Readers familiar with my blog will have read my stories before about our ongoing journey with Baby J and his hearing. A quick recap for those of you not familiar - a problem was detected with his hearing at birth and several hearing tests later confirmed mild hearing loss in his left ear. In August they were concerned that there was a change in his right ear. We are seeing a slew of specialists, and had a further hearing test this week to investigate the right ear further.
Since August I have been stressed out. I cried every time I told someone about what was going on. I felt frustrated that doctors were elusive, and tests weren't telling us anything. I was traipsing around to doctors appointments, my husband was taking time off work to come with me, and we had to trail Miss E with us a lot of the time (which anyone with a bored 3 year old will know, can add another stressful layer to the whole scenario). I literally was making myself physically sick.
Then, sometime before Baby J's first birthday 2 weeks ago something clicked. I essentially made a decision that I was not going to worry any more. I prayed the Serenity Prayer, but now I really meant it, and it helped. I have handed the worry over. I am powerless to influence how Baby J's hearing develops or does not develop. What I need to do is focus on the positive, and on the actions I need to do to make sure we stay on top of it and are ready to help him as soon as any 'extra' help is needed.
Going through the process of trying to first identify a suspected problem, quantify it in terms of severity and prognosis, and determine the cause is a daunting and stressful one. We deal with professionals with varying degrees of sympathy or compassion (never empathy, so far). But, while we are on this journey, I have learned, albeit the hard way, that there is nothing to be gained from worry.
Many people, the medical professionals, family and friends tried to tell me this, but I didn't listen because I was too caught up in what was basically a grief process. I look back now and I see how we (my husband and I) have gone through the denial, anger, bargaining, depression and have moved to acceptance.
We had two good appointments this week, and that sort of feels like a reward to me. The prize for finally 'letting it go'!
We saw a Genetics doctor on Monday. She was excellent and took time to answer all of our questions and concerns. She was able to rule out many genetic syndromes of which hearing loss is one element. She also pointed out that our understanding that J had inherited an autosomal recessive condition from us was inaccurate (thanks to the nurse in the ENT's office jumping to the wrong conclusion). J is a carrier of a gene that causes hearing loss, but at this point that is purely coincidental. So we still don't know the cause of the hearing loss. We may never know. For me though that is a secondary issue. My primary focus is Baby J and what his little ears are doing now and what will happen as he grows.
There are few more genetic syndromes that the doctor wants to rule out and so we will take Baby J for a renal ultrasound and an EKG on his heart. More tests! However, I am not worrying about these - I'm hanging on to that serenity!
Baby J had another sedated hearing test on Tuesday which brought the news that his left ear (the one with the originally identified problem) is still the same - so that's stable, no deterioration at all. Good news!
His right ear is showing a change, but it's a very subtle change, and not one that the audiologist is concerned about as of now. And neither am I. While it's not great that she confirmed this change in his right ear, this certainly wasn't gloomy news at all, I'll take it and will continue to pray that it stays stable and J's hearing will not get worse beyond this point.
As of now, Baby J's hearing is completely adequate for normal speech and language acquisition, which has been the primary concern regarding this hearing loss. If he does not hear all the speech sounds around him correctly, then of course he would never learn to reproduce them correctly without intervention.
No intervention is required at this point. We are happy about that, and remain cautiously optimistic for Baby J.
If he needs intervention at some point we'll get it for him. We are 100% on board with the ongoing monitoring. This is a 'happier' place to be than the denial and anger that had us questioning the diagnosis, and the need to be seen by all these specialists.
Perspective is also a wonderful thing, and something that helps me. The knowledge that what we're dealing with, while the fear of the unknown has definitely been there, it is relatively minor. We have been to a Children's Hospital a few times to see doctors, and specialty clinics with Baby J and it is an eye opener in terms of seeing the trials that other families must endure. I pray for all those families, those parents, and for all those mothers. I also pray in thanksgiving that my Baby J is so healthy and that we just have one area to which we need to pay special attention.
We now have a better understanding of why we've been putting Baby J through all these tests (reasons that were not immediately clear while we were undergoing them to be perfectly honest), and that helps give perspective to the journey we continue to move through, and the upcoming tests. While no-one has explicitly told us this, we believe that it is a by-product of the medical legal environment these days that doctors must disclose all the possibilities stemming from a hearing loss diagnosis and follow through with the appropriate tests to either confirm or rule them out. This 'disclosure' I could have done without because none of it ever came with any kind of statement on how likely or not it was that Baby J had any of the conditions to which they referred. Enter over active parental imagination and you have an explosion of panic, stress and fear.
With my new found serenity and perspective I will not give into the panic, stress or fear anymore. I will not be miserable with worry any longer, and I will continue to enjoy my child for the wonderful, happy, cheeky little guy he is!
Monday, September 24, 2007
A Letter to Heather
Dear Heather,
This week marks six years since you left.
Six years since D, your brother and my husband, had to get hold of your Mum, Dad, and Sisters late at night to tell them how you left.
Six years since D had to take you home, his heart breaking and burdened with the guilt he felt at not being able to protect you while you were in Florida. He still blames himself you know, that if he hadn’t been based in Florida, you would never have come here searching for something better for yourself.
Many times I think of you.
We met only on two occasions. Not enough time to really get to know each other. I do know though from my chats with D, and from what I saw on my visits to Florida when we did meet, that you were at times a troubled soul. Searching always for that which would make you happy. Looking for validation and approval from the wrong kinds of people. Putting on the mask of bravado, and displaying that ‘devil may care’ attitude for which so many had come to know you. Some of us could see past the mask, and know, that like all of us, you just wanted to love and to be loved, and that you had the same fierce sense of loyalty to your friends and family as the rest of your clan have.
In these six years I’ve come to know your family so well, but I feel like there is something missing. You were my husband’s sister, are my husband’s sister and you are gone.
We missed you at our wedding, so acutely aware of your absence. D and your family found it painful not to have you there to celebrate such a happy occasion with us. We had flowers in the church in your memory and I carried sprigs of heather in my bouquet, to have the ‘spirit’ of you there in some way.
I look at my children whom you’ve never met and I feel sad that they do not know you. I want to talk to you, to tell you about them. How Miss E resembles all of her paternal Aunts in her outgoing and headstrong nature, which pleases me and terrifies me all at the same time. I want to tell you about Baby J and his sweet nature. His smiles and his giggles and his cheeky expressions. I feel bad that my only way to talk to them about you is through a small number of photographs and very limited memories.
I think of my husband and the rest of your family and I get angry. I feel bitter that they’re cheated out of more memories with you. I get annoyed at you for making poor choices the night you died.
I want to scream at you not to be so stubborn. I want to plead with you like your friends did that night, not to go off with some drunken loser you’d just met. To beg you to wait until someone you knew would get you home safely. I want to ask you what in the hell you were thinking getting into a car with a drunk driver, on a night with what could possibly have been the worst rain seen in South Florida? I want to reach into that river and fight to get you out of that damn truck, to do what the drunken loser wouldn’t try to do because he was too busy saving his own hide. All because I don’t want you to be gone and because I don’t want D to have this pain and guilt that he has carried since he lost you, his baby sister.
These feelings of mine pale compared to what D feels, what your Mum and Dad feel, your Sisters, your Nieces and Nephew in Ireland, who knew you so well. Who love and miss you so much. I’ve seen D work his way through the major stages of grief, and then go right back to the start and work his way through them all over again. I’ve seen his grief bubble up at obvious times like birthdays and anniversaries, and at less predictable times in response to the tiniest reminders of you and my heart breaks for him. I do not know the depth of his hurt, but I do know that when I try to only imagine what it would be like to lose any of my siblings, a searing pain cuts right through me.
I see your Mum turn to God, and draw comfort from Him. I see your Dad withdrawn, and weary. He misses you, and lately he has said he wants to be where you are. I see your Sisters bottle up their grief, and their refusal to talk openly about you – something that saddens and frustrates your Mum. She has lost one baby, and she is watching her other babies struggle with this loss, too. She wants to help them but feels powerless to do so since they won’t talk to her.
While I feel like a fraud to say that I mourn for you, since I didn’t know you well, I do mourn. I mourn for not knowing you. I mourn for what could have been. I mourn for the fact that you never knew the joy of being a wife and a mother – the two things your Mum says you wanted most in life. I mourn that my children will never know you, and that D will never have the pleasure of seeing them interact with you.
I trust and pray that your family and my D can know a time when the raw pain of losing you eases a little bit more. That they can hold on to their happiest memories of you and in them find comfort.
I also trust and pray that you are in a better place now, Heather. That you now know a love beyond your imagination and that you are with us in a very special way.
Love from
Annie
This week marks six years since you left.
Six years since D, your brother and my husband, had to get hold of your Mum, Dad, and Sisters late at night to tell them how you left.
Six years since D had to take you home, his heart breaking and burdened with the guilt he felt at not being able to protect you while you were in Florida. He still blames himself you know, that if he hadn’t been based in Florida, you would never have come here searching for something better for yourself.
Many times I think of you.
We met only on two occasions. Not enough time to really get to know each other. I do know though from my chats with D, and from what I saw on my visits to Florida when we did meet, that you were at times a troubled soul. Searching always for that which would make you happy. Looking for validation and approval from the wrong kinds of people. Putting on the mask of bravado, and displaying that ‘devil may care’ attitude for which so many had come to know you. Some of us could see past the mask, and know, that like all of us, you just wanted to love and to be loved, and that you had the same fierce sense of loyalty to your friends and family as the rest of your clan have.
In these six years I’ve come to know your family so well, but I feel like there is something missing. You were my husband’s sister, are my husband’s sister and you are gone.
We missed you at our wedding, so acutely aware of your absence. D and your family found it painful not to have you there to celebrate such a happy occasion with us. We had flowers in the church in your memory and I carried sprigs of heather in my bouquet, to have the ‘spirit’ of you there in some way.
I look at my children whom you’ve never met and I feel sad that they do not know you. I want to talk to you, to tell you about them. How Miss E resembles all of her paternal Aunts in her outgoing and headstrong nature, which pleases me and terrifies me all at the same time. I want to tell you about Baby J and his sweet nature. His smiles and his giggles and his cheeky expressions. I feel bad that my only way to talk to them about you is through a small number of photographs and very limited memories.
I think of my husband and the rest of your family and I get angry. I feel bitter that they’re cheated out of more memories with you. I get annoyed at you for making poor choices the night you died.
I want to scream at you not to be so stubborn. I want to plead with you like your friends did that night, not to go off with some drunken loser you’d just met. To beg you to wait until someone you knew would get you home safely. I want to ask you what in the hell you were thinking getting into a car with a drunk driver, on a night with what could possibly have been the worst rain seen in South Florida? I want to reach into that river and fight to get you out of that damn truck, to do what the drunken loser wouldn’t try to do because he was too busy saving his own hide. All because I don’t want you to be gone and because I don’t want D to have this pain and guilt that he has carried since he lost you, his baby sister.
These feelings of mine pale compared to what D feels, what your Mum and Dad feel, your Sisters, your Nieces and Nephew in Ireland, who knew you so well. Who love and miss you so much. I’ve seen D work his way through the major stages of grief, and then go right back to the start and work his way through them all over again. I’ve seen his grief bubble up at obvious times like birthdays and anniversaries, and at less predictable times in response to the tiniest reminders of you and my heart breaks for him. I do not know the depth of his hurt, but I do know that when I try to only imagine what it would be like to lose any of my siblings, a searing pain cuts right through me.
I see your Mum turn to God, and draw comfort from Him. I see your Dad withdrawn, and weary. He misses you, and lately he has said he wants to be where you are. I see your Sisters bottle up their grief, and their refusal to talk openly about you – something that saddens and frustrates your Mum. She has lost one baby, and she is watching her other babies struggle with this loss, too. She wants to help them but feels powerless to do so since they won’t talk to her.
While I feel like a fraud to say that I mourn for you, since I didn’t know you well, I do mourn. I mourn for not knowing you. I mourn for what could have been. I mourn for the fact that you never knew the joy of being a wife and a mother – the two things your Mum says you wanted most in life. I mourn that my children will never know you, and that D will never have the pleasure of seeing them interact with you.
I trust and pray that your family and my D can know a time when the raw pain of losing you eases a little bit more. That they can hold on to their happiest memories of you and in them find comfort.
I also trust and pray that you are in a better place now, Heather. That you now know a love beyond your imagination and that you are with us in a very special way.
Love from
Annie
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