JIM O'SHEA
Counselling Service

Mary lay silent beside me, struck dumb by the horror of

losing one of her children. Unspeaking, and feeling the

unimaginable. She is a gentle person with a great love for her

children. She was always there to greet them when they came

home from school. The dinner was always ready. They usually

had some story for her about what had happened that day. I

had not as yet begun to worry about how she would cope with

this. I was hardly able to cope myself. But any injury to any of

her children caused her alarm and worry. Now one of them

was dead. Our youngest child, and therefore the one who

needed most care, was gone. Mothers begin to bond with

their unborn child shortly after conception. It is a most

powerful bond. Death does not destroy it. It remains as

strong as ever. This made Mary’s loss more poignant and sad.

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

Deirdre & her boyfriend, Denis, me & my aunt

Margaret stayed up all night because we were to collect

Frances from Shannon the following morning. We just

sat & cried all night. The night passed slowly, everyone

locked in their own thoughts, my aunt Margaret

struggling to keep a brave face in front of us all. Tim was

sleeping in the bed my darling brother had slept &

dreamt in a few hours before.

As we passed the night encased in our own nightmare,

comforted by friends and relatives, Frances was making her

long trip home. I went to bed in the early hours of the

morning, and, after a few hours’ deep sleep, awoke very early

to the nightmare. It was crushing. As I gathered my confused

thoughts, denial and incomprehension returned. As the

cold reality of what had happened sank in I felt terror. I had

never experienced anything like it before. I cannot describe

what terror really is. It manifested itself as a knot in my

stomach. A feeling of panic. I felt physically sick, wretched

and helpless. How could my child be dead? This cannot have

happened! Why was I not able to prevent it? Surely I should

have been able to do something to prevent this? Never did

I feel so disabled. I realise as I write this that I cannot find

the words to express how I felt on that first morning after

Cathal’s death. The numbness was gone, and the horror

fully felt.

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

Tim drove Breda home. She was comforted by her aunt,

Breda, whom we regarded almost as our own daughter. They

drove slowly into our yard, and when she got out, Bill and

Deirdre embraced her, drawing comfort from each other. The

remainder of her diary entry on that night shows how a

family can cling together in the face of adversity, and try to

support each other. It also shows how children (in this case

some of them adult children) are conscious of the loss of

support from their parents, who are themselves trying to

survive. This adds to their fear and their pain:

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

Now with her uncle Tim and his wife, Mary, Breda’s sense

of numbness ebbed and flowed: ‘the horror came floating

back.’ Her aunt Breda was there and Breda implored her aunt

to assure her that it wasn’t true. She fluctuated between

numbness, anguish, denial and anger. It seemed as if the

world had gone mad, that her relatives had gone mad. She

rang her mother and thought that she sounded tired. She was

ambiguous about getting home and facing the nightmare; she

had a strong desire to be with her family and an equally

strong wish that she would never reach home. As she stood

in Tim’s sitting room, she felt a great rage, particularly at

God: ‘I felt like smashing all the windows, kicking down the

doors. I wanted to scream “f—k you God, you b———d. I hate

you”.’ I was to experience such anger much later.

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

I remember nothing about the journey from the

airport home, not even who drove. I remember nothing

about meeting my family, or entering the house. I was

consumed by the need to see Cathal. It was like a force

driving me forward.

As Breda and Frances made their way back to

Ireland to confront this dark spectre of death, the

rest of our family sat disconsolately in the small

waiting room of the hospital, until we summoned the energy

to leave. Darkness had fallen when we began to make our way

home. Neither moon nor stars were shining that night. Our

neighbours had remained with us in the waiting room as we

sat in dazed silence. What was there to say? We were still in

shock and disbelief. What was this all about? Chaos! A world

destroyed! Survival! Helplessness! And ultimately, horror. I

cannot remember if I drove home. Probably not. But, I do

remember the darkness as we came into the yard of our

house. It is one of the clearest and bleakest memories I have.

With my senses heightened, I became conscious of the house

being shrouded in a deep gloom of blackness. What had once

been a warm and welcoming home was now a cold building

brooding under a winter sky. The heat was not on, and the

house was freezing. I felt at that time that this house would

never be the same again. I felt that laughter and fun would

never be heard there anymore. And so it was for a long time.

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

Meanwhile in London, Tom, knowing that he could not

protect Breda from the pain of grief, was doing everything in

his power to console and support her, and help her find her

way home to rejoin her shattered family. She recorded those

moments in her diary:

I packed my case, pulling out my black clothes with a

macabre logic. Tom drove me to his house, where his

wife, Vourneen, put her arms around me, and made me

a hot whiskey. By now I was in a complete state of shock,

completely and utterly oblivious to the painful reality,

my mind was numb … I vaguely remember ringing my

work associate & friend Katie & telling her calmly why

I wouldn’t be in for a while. I remember trying to

estimate for her how long I would be gone, as if I was

going to a wedding. Totally unreal.

 Extract from book When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family.

When she was allowed in to see Cathal, she stumbled into

the little room where he was laid out and I can remember her

horror-struck face when she saw her brother on the bed. I felt

so helpless. I wanted to support my children, but I was unable

to support even myself. I had mentally, but not emotionally,

accepted that Cathal was dead. Deirdre could not accept this

reality, especially as her brother looked as if he was asleep.

This is the image that stuck in her mind:

 When I saw Cathal in the hospital I began to believe

that he was only sleeping. He looked so peaceful, looked

the same as he always did. I really began to think that he

would most definitely wake up any minute, that he

would move, even a small movement to show us that he

would live. I felt very strongly that he wasn’t dead, that

he would come home, and that the doctors were wrong.

extract from ‘When a Child Dies. Footsteps of a Grieving Family’ published by Veritas