Sean Walsh

First Anniversary. My wife’s departure from this life unto Eternal Life… Many will remember her as Ann Walsh. Many more as Miss McGarry, a district nurse who never looked at the  clock. She was a giver. Always… A winter’s evening, Ann late for tea. A person she nursed, cared for, was dying. At midnight she rose, dressed, drove back down...

Oh, and one night there during the week when you were away, Dad, didn’t I walk into the front room over the pub, thinking it was empty.   And what do y’know, Mammy and Maggie sittin’ behind the lace curtains at one of the windows, looking down at the crowds going up and down Park Street and across at the...

One Yes?!. A, a bed for the – ? You haven’t a hope! I’ve never seen such crowds in Bethlehem!.. You, your wife is?.. Oh… Is she – due?.. Oh-hh… Well look, round the back – the stables. Ye’ll be in out of the weather, that at self.   Two She’s like that, my missus – always the good turn…...

Saint Francis Hospice… A room en suite soon to be a Departure Lounge.   At her bedside, Wee Four: Siobhan and Joanna, daughters, a sister, Patricia… mise…   ‘Reaching… touching cold hands, limp on bedding. ‘A beaker of water to dry lips, ‘sipping… declining. ‘Distraught at our very helplessness: her shallow breathing… straying words. Relieved, betimes, by morphine. My  voice...

Dear God Enlighten what is dark in me Strengthen what is weak in me Mend what is broken in me Bind what is bruised in me Heal what is sick in me and lastly, Revive whatever peace and love has died in me…