JIM O'SHEA
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Frances, still hysterical, refused to budge:

When the undertaker came to take Cathal, I would not

leave. I was outraged that he was being taken – our boy.

I wanted to be alone with him now that the public was

gone. The other members of my family dutifully left

when asked. But I stayed. I screamed something at the

undertaker. My uncle Pat finally removed me.

Death took us by the hand, and we emerged from the funeral

room, and slowly made our way through the large crowd. I

remember the narrow path as people stood sombrely in a

long line on either side. The hospital seemed to cast its huge

shadow over us as we made our way to our cars. Slowly we

followed the hearse the fifteen miles to the Cathedral of the

Assumption in Thurles. The family were in the front car, still

in disbelief that the body of their youngest member was being

carried in a coffin to repose in front of the magnificent altar

of the Cathedral. He was too young. This should not be.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

I will never forget that moment. It was a potent reminder

of this unwelcome reality. I felt physically sick as the lid was

closed and stared in horror as the bolts tightened. I could feel

my anguish and my fear increase as I got the last glimpse of

my child. I felt so helpless. What could I do? How could I

bring him back? Is this real? We were all thinking the same

way. Insignificant humans, powerless to prevent death

claiming our child. Death had taken him, and the grave

would claim him. We could not prevent it. Breda wrote that

she was mentally screaming, ‘no way, I’m not going anywhere

& neither is he. How did anybody think they could take away

what was rightfully ours. He was our baby’. Deirdre also

found this moment unbearable, and recalls ‘wanting to stay

with him all of the time, not wanting to be taken away from

him. I remember the screams from all of us when they took

Cathal away, and we had to leave’.

Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

Other members of our family wanted all this precious time

with Cathal to be for the family only. Frances records that

she was 

hysterical, just hysterical. I resented every single person

in that place that was not my immediate family. I felt

this should have been for us only. He was ours and we

needed that time alone with him. I wanted to tell them

all to get out. I remember the insane comments people

made by way of comfort to my mother: ‘God needed him’;

‘he’s a little angel now’; ‘sure he didn’t suffer.’

I could see that every comment cut my mother’s soul.

It was those who just cried with her that made any

difference at all. One of my best friends didn’t come to

the funeral or the wake. She said by way of explanation

that we were too emotional a family and she couldn’t

take the excess of grief she knew we would express.

It seemed like an eternity, but finally the long line of people

passing by ceased and the door was closed. Our family were

again alone with our child, and I felt the loneliness of losing

Cathal increase in the silence before the final prayers. I

listened sadly and incredulously to these prayers, and waited

for the coffin to be closed.

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.

We all stacked our hands on his chest. I don’t

remember whose hand went first. But each of us

automatically planted one hand on the next. We were

declaring our unity as a family that would always include

Cathal. Somehow his chest felt hollow, as if it would

cave away. I couldn’t bear the signs that he had been

hurt. The blood compacted in his nostrils, the massive

bruising on his neck, behind his shirt collar, and, easily

imagined, down his entire back.

We took our seats and the doors were opened.

The death of a child is what bereavement

psychologists call a particularly enfranchised loss.

What that means is that it evokes widespread sympathy. And

so it was with us. A great number of people slowly made their

way into the room. It was very moving for me. Yet it was also

an ordeal. I was too devastated to really appreciate it until

many years had passed. I was trying to come to terms with

Cathal’s death and meet all these people. Some friends of my

childhood came to sympathise, and I found this very

emotional. Somehow my own childhood and that of my lost

child became entangled in my mind, as I met those childhood

friends long unseen.

 Extract from When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family. Published by Veritas.