CRY provides cardiac screening for the young and helps families dealing with grief

Marie Greene’s son died suddenly of cardiac arrest aged 15. She talks to Margaret Jennings about how she coped with her grief by setting up a support charity for bereaved parents.

“I KEEP Peter by my side. They laugh at me when I say ‘Oh, I’ll get a parking space outside the station. Don’t worry’. And I always say ‘thanks Peter’, when I do. In that way, I keep him with me and I believe he’s around somehow.”

Marie Greene celebrated her 72nd birthday last month, but there is not a day over the past 21 years that she hasn’t included her son in her life, since he died suddenly of cardiac arrest.

When she herself was 14, just a year younger than Peter, her mother died, leaving her the eldest of five children — the youngest was under two — and she had thought that was the worst that could happen.

“I think my life changed totally then; it’s a vital age to lose somebody,” she says.

“When I actually talk to people now, who have lost somebody and when they say teenagers don’t need help, I sometimes disclose that I was that teenager and because I didn’t get any help in those days, I bottled it up for donkey’s years.

"It wants to come out, so I always advise that it’s a good idea to let teenagers talk, to go to somebody.”

The strength she showed then, in assisting her dad in taking care of the young family, helped her stay sane 37 years later, when her beautiful teenage boy, the youngest of four children, died within an hour of being rushed, in the middle of the night, to Beaumont hospital, in Dublin, following a severe bout of vomiting.

Marie and her husband Michael’s devastation can only be truly understood by other parents who have lost a child.

But by setting up CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young), they are offering support to bereaved parents that was sadly lacking for themselves.

CRY evolved as Marie struggled to understand how their healthy, sporty boy, who was full of optimism after just completing his Junior Cert, could have had his life cruelly cut short overnight: “It wasn’t a grand plan — it was me looking for answers,” she says.

After discovering CRY in Britain, she started a helpine here, in 2001: “By 2002, I knew I had to do something about the response and set up the registered charity. We set out three goals and they were to raise awareness, to support families, and to establish a screening centre.”

Her husband applied his business acumen — as a chief executive of a company — to CRY, whereas Marie came from a social work and counselling background.

All the work is voluntary at CRY. Almost 11,000 people have benefited from the centre, including those who are alive because of the cardiac screening.

“We screen families who have lost a member to sudden cardiac death, or we screen a young person who may be experiencing symptoms. When a person dies is when we usually first know there is a hereditary condition within the family,” says Marie.

How much of her life does it now take up?

“I permanently have the phone turned on. I’m there in an advisory capacity and will deal with referrals into the centre. But a lot goes through the centre and Lucia, our wonderful operations manager.”

Having had major surgery to her back two and a half years ago, when she underwent spinal realignment, Marie is celebrating new-found physical health in her early ’70s.

“My wonderful consultant, Pat Kiely, has given me back my life. I was getting more bent over and was in a lot of pain and it had degenerated over ten years, and he was the one who identified the problem.

"After a recovery period of two years, he has now told me to go and live my life and do whatever I want to do.”

Inevitably, that imprimatur of a new lease of life is inextricably bound for Marie to the memory of Peter, as she aims to walk the last 110km of the French leg of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, in September, and lead others in it, as a fundraiser for CRY.

“Most who walk are families who have lost a young person — under age 35 — to sudden cardiac death, who may have died in their sleep or after a diagnosis. But everyone is welcome, of course, and funding support, as well,” she says.

Through the tragic loss of her son and the intense grief she has encountered in families throughout the breadth of Ireland, Marie has met amazing people, she says.

She has witnessed the spirit of human survival. She can’t see herself stopping her involvement with CRY yet.

“But the work is ongoing and Michael and myself can, at least, step back and say we have helped so many families, as well. It has been an amazing trip.”

• Check out the Camino walk, Saturday, September 16-23 and the work of CRY, at www.cry.ie