Julie Jay: Saying goodbye again as another beloved grandparent dies

The death of my father in law is a reminder that things can change so quickly, and that grief, as a friend so accurately put it, is a beast.

Julie Jay: Grief is the hardest thing any of us will go through, and yet it is also one of the few things that will touch us all at some point. Picture: iStock

This week, we lost another beloved grandparent: My father-in-law died. It is still difficult to wrap our heads around, and we are all so sad that he is physically gone. But, of course, when it comes to the big stuff, delivering the news to the children is never easy.

When I initially told my nearly six-year-old that his Daideo had died, I had expected him to be upset, but his devastated reaction stunned me. Eamon hadn’t been well and the children were aware of that, having seen his decline for themselves. They also saw it in other older family members previously and knew what way it had gone for them.

“But he was only just here,” he protested. Was he? I asked, before realising that he thought I had said Dad instead of Daideo, hence his raw shock. When I explained that it was a grand-dad who had died his sadness was momentarily tempered, before the realisation hit that he had lost another grandparent.

“We had four, and now there’s only one,” my eldest noted, because nothing makes things real like a five-year-old doing the maths.

The funeral was lovely, though I spent most of it in the sacristan chapel with our youngest, my sister-in-law, and her toddler — the two children egging each other on to bounce up and down on sacred things and run up and down steps at speed. What’s harder to manage than a toddler in a church? Two toddlers in a church, especially when people are doing provocative things, such as bringing up gifts and handing out discs of bread like they were free samples at an ice-cream shop.

As I tried to keep Number Two distracted, Number One was positively rapt by the service, not uttering a peep from start to finish and going along with the cardio workout of kneeling, sitting, and standing on cue. So engrossed was he that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he comes home and announces he is embarking on a vocation.

When I initially told my nearly six-year-old that his Daideo had died, I had expected him to be upset, but his devastated reaction stunned me.

When pressed, I will realise that he is confusing this word with vacation, not declaring his desire to join a religious order.

But, honestly, I could see him doing something within the religious realm since he was the best boy in class in the church last Saturday. The stage, the microphone, the beautiful robes all seemed to appeal to Number One. It will take a lot of work to talk him out of dressing like a priest for World Book Day, especially when, at the end of Mass, the very kind priest bestowed jellies on him and the other children. So lovely was this last gesture that I fear every other Mass will be a disappointment, because the number of annual services that end in sweets is low.

The ceremony itself heard of Eamon’s love of James Joyce, and his flair for poetry, having published books throughout his life. The outpouring of sadness from the entire community in Kells spoke to a man who was so central to the heart of the town. As I told one family friend who offered her condolences, their loss was as big if not bigger than my own, seeing as they had known Eamon for decades and most recently sang with him in the choir, the same choir that sang at his funeral last weekend.

He hadn’t been well, but we were all floored by the speed with which he deteriorated. Just last summer, he put us all to shame by walking up and down the beach in Bundoran with the ease of a man who had always been active and strong.

The image of him walking the strand, a dot in the distance, growing bigger and bigger, until finally he was sitting, sun-kissed and happy, in a deckchair beside us, asking what we would do for the dinner, will stay with me always.

It feels surreal to think all of these people are gone in such a short space of time. “I am an orphan now,” my husband said yesterday morning, and it struck me then what a seismic shift it is when both your parents are gone, whatever age you are.

I know there is no comparison, grief wise, between losing a young person, or, heaven forbid, a child, and losing a man who got to see 82 Christmasses, birthdays, and Easters. But grief is still the hardest thing any of us will go through, and yet it is also one of the few things that will touch us all at some point. It is the only thing certain in this life. That, and getting clamped. A friend texted me to say grief is a beast, and the accuracy is painfully on point.

Rest in peace, Eamon. You were loved and you will be so missed. There were four, and now there is only one.