LET THE BUSY WORLD BE HUSHED: Words can wear away the path you have to travel
His face gazes out from the In Memoriam pages of the Celt, on this the Month’s Mind of his death, happy and smiling as he always and ever had been, without, it seemed, a care in the world. His head turned in a moment to greet his mother as she took a passing photograph of him with her phone, unaware that in this image he would be immortalised, in the fullness of his youth, dressed in a blue and yellow Cavan jersey, forever more. I gaze back at his image, wondering as to the thoughts that his mind held in those moments, thoughts that he kept hidden, deep, deep within.
It seems surreal, hard to fathom the enormity of his death, that four weeks ago on this Sunday night as I write, that he actually did die, just a boy of 14 years, on the cusp of a wave, the whole of a life to look forward to. My mind tells me that it cannot be, what seems like a dream, like the stills of a movie that are played over and over in the mind, that ordinary night as a school community, staff and students went to bed ready for the week ahead, unaware of all that was to unfold from the moment the guard did ring.
For I had spoken to him just two days before as he stood atop of the steps at the entrance to the school, happy and smiling as always; “howaya Fr.?” spoken in his drawn out accent like man much older than his years, stepped two foot deep in the bog. He smiled with delight as I commented on his tan, gained in the 40 degree heat of Lanzarote some weeks before. He was always there in the morning, standing with his friends, talking on tractors and rallies and the upcoming Ploughing. There was an U15 final to contend with, though he fancied their chances and, between the banter and auld guff, there was always laughter. As he walked to the toilets during class with his journal in his hand, he was apt to stand and talk to you, just to delay the inevitable return be it to Irish or Maths, conversing on any topic that he knew would engage you, all in the hope of waylaying you (not that you minded being waylaid for he was lovely company to be in).
“Have you any jobs for me to do… Ah go on… I’ll pick up the litter or dig up the weeds, you know those flowers in the baskets need dead heading?.”
“NO you can’t be missing class!”
“I’ve a free class Sir”; knowing well that he didn’t have a free class. He could have any subject at that time except for PE, for he wouldn’t miss PE for love nor money, and trained assiduously every Friday afternoon with the school team on the 3G pitch.
He hated being in trouble and avoided it and those that courted it like the plague. He was someone you’d like to stand and talk with at the lockers, both he and his friends, for they always had a story to tell, though sometimes total fabrication, in the telling, it’d lift your day.
I write not these words because he has died but because he has lived, words not intended to beatify or glorify this boy in his passing but to tell how he, unbeknownst to himself, influenced the simple and the ordinary of people’s lives, both young and old, in the midst of a school community of nigh on 900 students. I wish, as I think on him as I have thought every day over this past month, that we had those moments on the ‘Mall’ to stand again, and in the waylaying to tell him all these things, as I know would his Woodwork Teacher, if he had the chance, who last said goodbye to him as he left the room smiling on Friday afternoon or indeed his English teacher who corrected a diary entry he wrote that day of his holiday in Spain, his football trainer too or indeed his classmates who miss the fun and laughter he brought to the room.
For he couldn’t have realised how important he was in the lives of oh so many, he couldn’t have known the heartache he would bring in the aftermath of his dying, the sheer and utter devastation of his young parents who clambered to hang onto his life in the Accident and Emergency unit in the dying moments of the day. For, if he could have known the heartbreak and the loss he wrought, a heartache so heavy to bear that it weighs down the soul so that the person who emerges from the darkness is but a shadow of themselves, he would have done anything to have prevented it.
Whatever thoughts took prisoner of his vulnerable mind on that Sunday night four weeks ago, stole the smile from off his face and the beautiful life that was his. A life that held so many promises, the promise of a future, a brilliant footballer in the making, a life lived close to nature and the land for he yearned for all things to do with the land, he dreamed of Ballyhaise Agricultural College and all that it would bring. There were TY possibilities to come, work experience, a Debs balls, a girlfriend, a wife, a family of his own, surely if he had have seen beyond those moments of turmoil, he would not have died.
In those moments on that Sunday night, I know he did not set out to cause hurt or heartbreak or leave his parents with the endless wondering as to why because he loved his parents deeply, he loved those days fishing with his father or walks through the woods, those moves with his mother on the kitchen floor, kicking football with his little brother on the green or cuddling up to his little sister.
At just 14, he could not see the searing anguish that would be left in his wake nor could he have understood the fine line between life and death nor comprehend that in those moments thereafter as he thought on his decision that there would be no tomorrow.
In the decision he made between life and death he could not distinguish between what was real, the love in which he was held and that which was unreal, the dark, negative thoughts that told him he was worthless, that he had nothing to contribute nor give to this world.
St Therese of Avila wrote words in the 1500s:
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing,
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
As a teenager a nun gave me a card with these words written on it and, in moments of darkness when all seemed lost, when negative voices breathed down my throat, I repeated them to myself over and over again to convince that ‘.
Dayle’s parents, in the depths of their loss, want to tell other young people with overbearing thoughts in their minds, thoughts that lie hidden deep within, which seem will never go away, that all things pass and that which seems like an insurmountable mountain today will be but a blip in the landscape in time to come, for patience overcomes all things.
But, in the meantime while you wait for that which occupies your mind to pass, it takes but a few words, a few words in the ear of someone you can trust - a teacher, a parent, a grandparent - words spoken about that which is most important and that which seems insurmountable, in talking the mountain becomes much more manageable to climb. So please speak words to someone, anyone whom you know will listen, someone who will cherish you and the words that you have to say and the path you have to travel will be worn, with words, away.
Dayle was the loveliest of young men, he had the biggest smile and the most endearing of ways and his loss is immeasurable. I only wish that he had shared that which heavied his heart. So as you gaze on his picture in the In Memoriam pages, the picture of a boy with so much yet to live for, please remember to speak in words, simple words, ordinary words about that which causes you pain and, in the talking, you will find that healing will, over time, be gained.
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