Eight: Bittersweet

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it already, but we won a championship this year.

When I started playing senior hurling in 2004, a lot of the people who played in this year’s team were in nappies.

Twenty years later the medal is in the pocket and the word ‘retirement’ no longer carries the same fear.

The feeling of winning a championship is intangible; a heady injection of euphoria and relief so intense reality for a moment loosens its grip.

It’s a good thing there was a camera on hand to capture the moment, because if you asked me what I did in those few seconds after the final whistle, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

To have milled around that crowd in the past as a journalist looking for a player to provide a few words, to finally just float through and enjoy the experience was deeply gratifying.

At the beginning of most seasons, there is usually a conversation about your “why”.

Why do you do all the training? Why do you sacrifice that time with friends and family? Why do you drag yourself from the warmth of the fire into the freezing darkness of yet another pre-season?

Since we lost our first-born daughter Fionnuala eight years ago, I’ve never had more clarity on why.

The early hours of that morning in Belfast’s Royal maternity ward was in part beautiful; we met our daughter, we held her, we said goodbye.

But it came alongside the devastating low of losing our daughter and the realisation we would have to manage that grief for the rest of our lives.

In the face of such a low, seeking out a high is a natural reaction. Something to make you feel better, an attempt to in some way counteract the pain.

For me, growing up there was no greater high than playing in and winning hurling matches with Rasharkin.

At that point, I had stopped playing hurling altogether. I had been away from the club for almost a decade, missed the two previous wins.

So I went back, took the slagging on the chin, started the climb and eventually reached the summit in Loughgiel in October.

You savour every moment. Every photo; every pat on the back; every handshake. Blue and yellow smoke lit up by street lamps as the lorry parades down the main street.

The reflection of fireworks flashing in the silver cup that bobs up and down above the rapturous mass of smiles and song underneath.

The celebrations spent hoping closing time never comes. Smiles on everyone’s faces and joyful noise bouncing off every wall.

But mostly it’s family; embracing my wife and children at the end of it. Having that photo to keep close when those memories inevitably fade; a talisman to bring it all back.

We brought the trophy to Fionnuala’s grave on the Tuesday. It’s a moment I’d played out in my mind since we stood there in the teeming rain eight years ago, burying our daughter two days before Christmas.

Muireann ran up to the grave gripping both handles of the cup.

“Fionnuala, look what we got!” she said, as Meidhbhín mimicked her sister’s excitement. A lovely moment shared between three sisters.

Victory's euphoria will lessen over time – it always does - but those moments, seeing our girls sharing life with their sister, keeping her memory alive, they are the flashes of joy that sustain you.

Losing Fionnuala is no less painful now than it was in 2016. The echoes arrive each Christmas, adding to the intensity of that second week in December when it seems like everything comes at once.

School plays. Christmas jumper days. Work parties. Secret Santa lists. Not-so-secret Santa lists. The cut and thrust of the festive season.

It will forever be entwined with our first daughter, those moments of love, grief and joy in that hospital ward and the weeks and months that followed.

This year has brought so much delight in watching our girls grow just a little more; watching them find their way, throwing themselves into camogie, music, school, dancing.

The bittersweet tinge is wondering how Fionnuala would have navigated it all.

Grief cannot be allowed to consume; we manage its omnipresence. Everyone finds their own way.

Colleen told me in the midst of all the celebrations, Muireann turned to her and asked: “Mammy, why does Daddy look so happy?”

I hope when the girls are old enough to read this, they'll understand exactly why.

Happy birthday Fionnuala.

🌈 15.12.16