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To Eyes That are Bright as Stars When They’re Shining on Me!*
Today would have been mammy’s 95th birthday. It’s not a case of me ever forgetting her birthday. I always remember it. But today is her first birthday since Darren died, and my head was filled with so many thoughts and emotions this morning. I was 13 when my father died. Nine months later, my grandfather,…
Day 150 of Grief: Creating a Christmas Resource and The Ewings
I am going to put together a guide on how to survive Christmas with grief. This is the beginning of me putting one together, written as Dan and I try to work out how to get through our first Christmas without Darren. I will only fully create the resource when I know how it has…
Day 128: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
He’s never coming back. What an awful thought. He has to come back. I keep seeing him. It’s just not possible that Darren is dead. It can’t be the end. It not possible that I will never see him again. He was my one. He was my rock. He helped make me. I had him…
We are All Born Mad. Some Remain So.
Daniel is going on a school trip to London to see different theatre shows in the New Year, and I thought, my goodness, I might go too. Not stuck beside him like some mad clingy parent, but if he was over in London going to theatre shows, I could maybe go over as well, do…
Day 17 / 18 of Grief: Teeth, Shit Men and Anger
This is dated the 10th of June, by the way, in case I ever want a record of when I was saying this. I, I can’t get the image out of my head of when he was lying there, when he was put into the small room and the blue sheet that they put over…
Day 37 of Grief: Where Do I Go When There’s a Joke?
(recorded on phone- imaginary chats with darren) Aren’t we something? Oh my God, you’re a great designer. You’re the best. And how lucky of me, I could always defer to you about design things. Nerdy things. We’d chat about web design and UX, or issues with sites you were working on – or I would…
Day 24 of Grief: The Stubbly Hairs at the Bottom of his Nose
(From my recordings). On the Friday of my Mammy’s funeral, I came home and said, Darren, I need to get drunk and grieve this properly by myself (with him obviously). I don’t need loads of people around me to do that. I knew I’d get teary, but I’d be OK. I’m not… I don’t drink…
Day 64 of Grief: The ‘Magical Power’ of Misery.
So here is a strange case. I went to the dentist today, and I hate going to the dentist. No thats a lie, I dont hate dentists, its a necessary evil- and they rid you of dental pain, so they are quite godly actually! It was just a check-up and clean, but I get quite…
Day 118 of Grief: Lesbian Horror and Imaginary Cousins
So today is Saturday, the 19th of September. I have got a dreadful back-to-school bug which is living in my throat and chest, and my whole head has just been completely screwed this past week. I have had a severe lack of sleep because the sore throat has kept me awake, no matter what medication…
Day 27 of Grief: Fathers Day
(From recording) So, what is this? Sunday, whatever of June, possibly. I have been cleaning for a while, I guess. It’s Father’s Day in the real world. I’m like one of those Traveller women who spend their lives fucking cleaning. Could do with a few of them around here. The state of this house when…
The First Day of a Sudden Death; When the Worst Possible Thing Happens
One minute I was dawdling to the bathroom. Within half an hour to an hour, the house was filled with paramedics and police officers. You’re being asked questions about the person, how you found them, how they had been and whether they had any underlying conditions. You’re in a completely different world. Your head is…
Oh, Your Hair is Beautiful! Choosing Music For Darren’s Celebration and Cremation
One of the things Darren and I never put a great deal of thought into was what music we would have at our funerals. Why would we? Maybe if we were having a drink, having a laugh and chatting about music, we would talk about a song we would want played at our funeral. But…
A Cup of Tea and a Diazepam (Day 102)
A cup of tea and a diazepam. This is what is going to get me through today. I’ve been like this since Wednesday. Daniel went back to school yesterday, and it triggered the reality of it. The awfulness. I can’t stop crying. I can’t stop thinking about him. I can’t remember how he laughed, and…
Day 101 of Grief: Back to School
In some ways, I cannot believe it has been over 100 days since Darren passed. Daniel is back at school tomorrow, and today both of us were pretty shaky. I think it was me who set him off because he found me crying. I could not stop thinking about the fact that, on Daniel’s first…
Day 12 of Grief: We Were a Gang
(transcribed from a drunk ramble) We truly loved each other. We loved each other as people. People say, “I love you,” but with us, it was because we were a team. We were never going to do anything against each other, no matter what. With Daniel, we were a trio. We were tight as fuck….
I Hope He Knew Nothing
I touched his body in that bathroom. I use the word ‘body,’ but I wasn’t saying that he was a body, that he was dead. I was literally hoping that maybe he was unconscious in some kind of way. When I touched him, he felt coolish but not cold. It wasn’t like my mother when…
Day 26 of Grief: Feeling Everything and Nothing
I’m dealing with the death of my husband nearly four weeks ago and my son’s out, so I can’t, I don’t feel like reading, I don’t feel like watching anything. I just don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t know what I feel. I took a diazepam because I was starting to stress a wee…
Bits of Advice If Your Friend Is Going Through the Death of a Partner
I was thinking about what advice I would give to people whose friend has suffered a horrific, traumatic grief experience like Daniel and I did. I mean, it’s fucking awful. It’s like the ground disappears from beneath you or you have just been thrown into some alternative reality. It’s the thing you don’t know exists,…
The Bands Darren Had No Choice But to Love
So, I think if I ever created a podcast, I would call it The Banshee of Ballyhack. I think it will be where the more humorous side of me goes, along with my dry humour and all the stuff about music and film. And death; lots about death. Basically, it is everything I would be…
Day 26 of Grief: A Stream of Random Thoughts
Just going through my notes and scribbles, this is from Friday, the 19th of June. Note: When I recorded this, I did not yet have Darren’s post-mortem report. I was searching backwards through every cough, every twitch, any health issues (he had none), trying to work out whether I had missed something. Daniel’s on his…
Dedicated Non-Follower of Fashion (Rick James Style)
I wrote this a number of weeks ago- wasnt sure where to put it- so putting it here. Just a little something about Darren and his style…. It’s been six weeks since Darren passed, and to be honest, every day feels like a year. Time has become abstract. It feels like his death happened ages…
Day 57 of Grief: I Walk a Lonely Road..
Just walking down the street and I realised that I’m on my own. That my best friend, the one I had and grew up with, Darren, is gone. Gone. I mean, really, really gone. There is no coming back. And I feel like I’m on my own. I mean, it’s not that I really want…
The Misery Game: Currently Level 2 or Maybe 3?
So this is Monday, 17 August. This is week 12, or 12 weeks since Darren passed away. This is the kind of time I am waking up, back into my usual world of remembering every inch of it and remembering that it is all going to kick off now. It is kind of a busy…
I Fucking Hate Mondays
This post describes finding my husband. Please skip it if that’s not something you can read today. Mondays are the hardest day. I wake up at around eight and remember that was the same time I woke up on 25 May. It was a bank holiday, so the idea of lying in was more tempting…
The Introduction Bit
Today is 12 August 2026, the day we finally received word that I can go ahead and register my husband Darren’s death. Darren died suddenly at home on 25th May 2026. There were no illnesses that we knew of and no warning that he was going to die. The night before, we’d sat together, laughed…