Heartbreak as mother and girls laid to rest

Neans McSweeney

Her long, brown hair hung over her gaunt, pale face, which was soaked with tears.

In her left hand was a bunch of pink tulips which she solemnly placed on top of her mother’s pale, glazed coffin. She then rearranged a white reindeer with blue antlers which had become lopsided on the casket, before lovingly touching Mikahla’s white coffin, then Abby’s.

Mikahla’s name was spelt out in beautiful white carnations, Abby’s in pink. Two floral tributes in the shape of teddy bears stood nearby.

The grief-stricken little girl who had been robbed of two sisters and an adoring mum then retreated reluctantly, shrinking into the top pew to hide under her grandmother Rosy’s right arm. Her aunt, Lillian, sobbed inconsolably as they all tried desperately to come to terms with a tragedy which has not just touched the local community but families, particularly mothers, right across the country.

And as the soloist opened with a solemn hymn, I am Always Close to You, a stunned, shattered and united community prayed for the 11-year-old, her distraught stepfather, Barry Grace, and half-brother, Tony, 14, who had been left behind.

Nobody could or would ever understand why the 28-year-old devoted mother and wife would leave her home on Saturday night last to drown her two little girls, then herself, in the River Slaney.

Sunshine beamed through the stained glass at either side of the parish church. And though the heating was on, as were all the lights, it was bitterly cold, dark even.

Parish priest Fr Sean Gorman stood like a pillar of strength on the altar decked with white flowers, wrestling to help his flock deal with it all. He said it was not for anyone to judge what Sharon had done. He said only God had the right to do that.

“Some people die after many years of living and we are sad to see them go ...

Others die young, from illness or after an accident. The pain they leave behind is sometimes beyond imagining. But the death now of Sharon, Mikahla and Abby has called us here together today. It is probably the most difficult of all to accept,” Fr Gorman said.

Distraught dad Barry Grace was first to emerge from the packed church, carrying the front end of the coffin of his little girl Mikahla. Abby’s coffin followed, then Susan’s.

And as the three coffins were lowered, a hundred yards away, another mother was also praying, remembering how raw the wounds of loss were. Casey Ryan’s mum had been at his grave an hour earlier.

“My little boy fell awkwardly on a trampoline and died. He was taken from us on March 15, 2003. He was just 11 and three-quarters. He’ll be busy now, watching over these two little girls. There’s got to be a better place than this world,” she said, as she disappeared from the quiet, sombre place.