… before the Debs, 2008. Thanks to Aisling for this.
Monthly Archives: July 2012
A Night for Sean … 28 July 2012
Friends and family turned out in force to celebrate what would have been Sean’s 21st birthday. A great night, and €560 raised for CRY. Many thanks to all concerned.
18 songs
In anticipation of Sean’s 21st birthday, here are links to the songs I wrote last year.
All Because of You
Beating Heart
Bridges
Come Back and See Me
Devil’s Bit
Gone Away
Hey Sean
July to September
Lament for Sean O’Brien
Losing You
Love Remains
No Way of Knowing
Nothing but Love
One Way
Sean and Clio in the Snow
The Heat of Love
The Road
7021 Days
100,000
Sean about to catch a bus to Donegal with some friends after he finished his Leaving Cert, June 2008 … he was not quite 17 years old.
The number of hits on this blog creeps into six figures and, 21 months after his death, Sean’s 21st birthday approaches. We’ll be marking it, of course.
As time moves on, being without him becomes no less strange. Pauline and I, while accepting his loss on some levels, still find it almost impossible to believe on others. Every time we think of him – and we think of him a great deal – he is as real a person as if he were just about to walk in the door.
Some people who knew him don’t talk about him when we wish they would, not understanding. Some who didn’t know him are happy to give us the opportunity to talk about him, and we are glad of that. He is still a member of our family, after all.
There are fewer tears than there used to be, but there are still tears. Life goes on and changes, and we try to move forward in various ways, but some things will never change. We love Sean like we always did.
Some diary entries … December 1995 to February 1996
1/12/95 – I read the paper and watched the coverage of Clinton arriving in Dublin. Changed days from the demonstrations against Reagan … Sean went to Olivia’s birthday party in the afternoon, and Pauline and Susanna went swimming.
3/12/95 – Pauline took Sean and Susanna to the park to feed the ducks … Later, Pauline went to the Nutgrove, and came back with some little books for Susanna and ‘magic’ colour-changing markers for Sean. The latter were a huge hit.
5/12/95 – We went out to Sean’s Christmas concert at his school. He was wearing a gold waistcoat and so on. His class’s contribution consisted of a ‘world tour’ with various songs. Sean’s role was to introduce the final item by saying ‘Our journey’s nearly over, but at this time of year; there’s one more step that we must take, with Santa and his reindeer’ (or ‘reindeers’, as he insisted on saying), but the teacher forgot all about this bit so he didn’t do it – Pauline and I were disappointed but Sean didn’t care particularly. Continue reading
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 