JIM O'SHEA
Counselling Service

I can well understand why Breda did not wish to enter that

morgue, and I am glad that she did not do so. I can

understand how appalled Frances was, and how Bill could be

so physically ill. Of all the experiences of that first week, and

of the entire grieving process, this was the most painful one

for me. I watch the Silent Witness drama on television quite

frequently, and most episodes include morgue scenes. Pulling

back the sheet to reveal the naked corpse is just a moment of

drama, which most people barely notice. But for me this now

evokes memories of that terrible day. I was led into the

morgue in Cashel by the late Inspector Ned Lafferty. Ned,

whom I got to know much later when I was the principal of

Our Lady’s Secondary School, showed himself to be a warm,

generous and caring person that day. 

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

Our lives had stopped. I remember resenting every

laugh I heard, every sign of life. I wanted to scream,

‘How can you laugh and joke? Don’t you know what has

happened?’ I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t

feel the cataclysm. I was enraged that some seismic scale

hadn’t registered it to the world.

Breda wanted to be near Cathal, ‘to touch him, to stay with

him; the urgent need to do this was choking me’. But, the

ordeal of seeing him for the first time was too much for her:

When we arrived I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t look at him.

I didn’t want to see his body I loved so much bruised &

bloody. I’d rather die. It would have haunted me forever.

If only I could have talked to him; even if he had lived

& been in a vegetative state I could have gone back

home & minded him.

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

That day the nightmare intensified. I was called to go to the

hospital and identify Cathal in the morgue. Frances, Breda

and Bill wished to come and support me. Frances, who was

exhausted from the journey home from the United States

and from the trauma, has the clearest description of what it

was like for Bill and herself:

I remember that Dad was to identify the body at the

morgue of Cashel Hospital. As I had been many times

before, I was once again his companion in the hard

moments. Bill came too. Cathal was unmistakeably dead.

In those days, undertakers took no pains to conceal

death. His yellow pallor was the ultimate proof. He

always had a rosy, healthy complexion. I’ve come to

associate that waxy, yellow colour with death.

Bill entered for just a second and went around the

side to vomit repeatedly. We were broken.

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

Breda and her aunt Margaret had long gone to Shannon

Airport to collect Frances. What an unenviable errand! Breda

describes what it was like for them:

 Our journey to Shannon was a nightmare; bitter stormy

weather, to match our emotions. Meeting Fran had

broken my barriers temporarily, & the raw pain made

me feel so ill, & the anger boiled within me. I was afraid

of the love we shared in my family, the feeling of

togetherness we had. It scared me. I wished we hadn’t

been so close, it wasn’t worth it. I hated God. My family

never did anything to deliberately hurt anyone, & he

had rewarded us by snatching away the child we adored

& idolised. I felt myself drift in & out of sanity, hardly

aware of what went on, bouts of numbness interrupted

by sharp stabs of physical pain in my stomach. I wanted

to go to Cathal & wrap my arms around him like before

& tell him it would be okay. I was so angry that God

hadn’t taken me instead.

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

But these were not my thoughts on that morning. They

would come later, and cause me worry and anxiety. For now

I had to survive. There was no question of my being the big

strong father. There could be no pretence here. This was real.

There was no hiding this vulnerability. But, vulnerability is

our greatest strength. It causes us to reach out for help. But

who would I reach out to? I did not have the strenght to reach

out. All those in the house could not support me. I dragged

myself out of bed and made some tea. I cannot recall if the

others were up. I don’t suppose we had much to say, except

to sit morosely, and dwell in our sad thoughts. 

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

I became even more aware of this bond and this maternal

love from a book that I am currently reading entitled Behind

the Lines by Andrew Carroll. It is a book which quotes the

letters of various people written during the major wars waged

since the eighteenth century. One of these was written by a

Hungarian doctor, Anna Koppich, whose young son perished

in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where she, too,

was imprisoned. I was moved by the following lines:

‘And now I have a confession to make. For many, many

years, even after I gave birth, I thought that being in love

is the most formidable, the strongest feeling in the

world. Later I realised, however, what being a mother

means. I found out that motherly love is way above any

other kind, a kind of love that is so little talked about,

so little written about.’

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

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.