Here’s to my mother, forever 30, and my father, who raised us

My mother died 40 years ago this month. August 20th, 1976. I was four years old. My sister was six.

Thirty-nine years of anniversaries have come and gone and we have marked none of them collectively, only in our own individual way. This year I thought it would be nice to remember her, together. And so we have planned a small gathering of family and friends for what will hopefully be an evening of laughs and memories, some of which my sister and I hope to hear for the first time.

As a result, I have been thinking a lot about anniversaries and what they mean to people and I realised that, for all these years, on her anniversary I have thought mostly about myself. How her passing affected me, what I missed out on. I realised that I spent very little time thinking about what type of life my beautiful mother would have had, about what she missed out on.

And so, with this milestone anniversary I thought it would be a good year to use the day in a different way. To look outwards, rather than inwards. To think about others.

After my mother died, my maternal grandmother stepped up. For years she was there when we came in from school. She washed us, fed us, put manners on us. She commanded a respect far in excess of her tiny stature, and you simply did what she told you. But most of all she loved us. She loved us with the passion of a grandmother who had lost her daughter, and I will be forever grateful for that.

It is only as I’ve grown older and had children that I can fully appreciate what my father sacrificed for us in the years after my mother’s death. He was a young man, and yet all his days off work, his weekends and his holidays were spent with my sister and me.

For two glorious weeks every summer the three of us went to Kerry. Singing Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Beatles songs loudly as we drove south, we could not have been more excited. Every holiday was spent climbing mountains, eating seafood, swimming in the sea and hiking through valleys to drink from “Jack’s” waterfall. Those holidays were memorable and magical in a way that a sun holiday abroad could simply never have been.

We went everywhere with Dad, always – something which, if he found hard, he never let us know. He always seemed happy to have us there.

Summers as a student in UCG were spent travelling. A handwritten letter arrived from Dad at least twice a week to wherever we were living in London, Amsterdam, Munich or San Francisco. And once a week those letters were accompanied by a copy of the Galway Advertiser. In the days before mobile phones or the internet, this local newspaper was devoured by my friends and me. They were always amused, but still jealous of the regular letters I got from Dad, with updates on everything from what birds had arrived in our garden to how the Galway hurlers were doing.

Years later, after I moved to Dublin, there were times when I would drive home after a bad week for one thing: a hug from Dad. I would walk into his workplace and, whether he was talking to a national politician or a local publican, he would immediately excuse himself and wrap his arms around me, always with the words “You’ve made my day”. It was like a battery recharge, and I would return to Dublin ready for whatever the next few weeks might bring.

Dad taught us what was wrong, but more importantly what was right. He encouraged us to be strong, independent women, but he also instilled in us the importance of caring and empathy. And he led by example with his involvement in many charities and his involvement in community.

We were the only single-parent family that we knew growing up, and yet I never felt like we missed out on anything. In fact I always felt like we were the lucky ones. And we were, in so many ways. Thankfully, we still are.

And so, I don’t think my mother would mind if I used her 40th anniversary to say: thank you, Dad. For everything. And to my mother, forever 30, we will raise a glass to you.