'Every road death is different, and all of us grieve so differently'

An event marking the world day of remembrance for road traffic victims was held at Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre

For Laura Rice said, it has been necessary to find out everything that happened on the day her father was taken from her family after a collision in 2021. Picture: Keith Arkins Media

It was appropriate that an event marking the world day of remembrance for road traffic victims be held at Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre.

A former Catholic Church, the beautiful building just north of the Liffey and west of Temple Bar is a solemn setting, an apt location for an audience of people who have had their lives turned upside down by the loss of loved ones on Irish roads.

The event was MC’ed by author and presenter Meghann Scully, who told her own story of loss — her 18-year-old brother Marcus was killed in a road accident in 2005.

Aged just 15 at the time, Ms Scully noted that everyone in attendance knew the feeling: “Most of you know — you get the call and then your whole world comes crashing down.”

“I was only 15, I didn’t know what grief was. I didn’t know how to deal with everyone else’s, or my own,” she said. Her dad died the following year aged just 52.

“By 16 I’d lost the two most important men in my life. I was just floating. I wasn’t living my own life,” she said. But she noted that her grief didn’t truly hit her until many years later when she was studying for her masters.

“Suddenly there was no one for me to look after. Everyone was standing on their own two feet. I remember thinking that I’m not ready for this. 

One evening, I was in my college house, and I was on the floor, and I was crying so much. And I remember physically trying to push myself off that floor, but the weight on my chest just kept me down there and I couldn’t push myself up, the weight was too much.

That was when she realised “it was time to face up to what happened — our grief and our loss and all those years of suffering”, she said, adding that she continues to talk to her father and her brother “out loud”.

“I think it's important to talk to them and to keep their spirits alive. And when you keep their spirits alive, you can feel them with you, and they'll carry you through those darkest days,” she said.

Laura Rice, who lost her beloved father Alan to a collision in 2021, told the gathering that the knock on the door to inform her and her family of his passing was something that “haunts me”.

“I realise every road death is different, and all of us grieve so differently, like a fingerprint, it is unique,” she said.

For her, grief had been like “a boulder that fell and crushed me on the day my Dad was killed”.

Laura Rice told the gathering that the knock on the door to inform her and her family of her father's passing was something that 'haunts me'. Picture: Keith Arkins Media 

“Over time it can shrink to the size of a stone. A stone that I must always carry with me. Every now and then, particularly with a road death, it becomes a boulder again,” she said.

She described the “visceral” noise that came from her son Charlie when he heard his grandfather had been killed, how he shouted “please Mum, not my grandpa”. How she kept vomiting, how she couldn’t comfort her own daughter as more and more people began to arrive at the house, all wanting to know what had happened.

For her, Ms Rice said, it has been necessary to find out everything that happened on the day her father was taken from her family.

“It turns out all these details are things I need to know to help deal with the grief. I want every detail. These details were not freely given to us. I will never know what exactly happened,” she said.