Even on Days when it Rains

by Julia O'Donnell

  One day, as I peered out through the frosted window of the old house, I decided that I couldn’t wait for the council’s red tape to be sorted. We would move over lock, stock and barrel under the cover of darkness that very night. Francie was away working in Scotland, so the family and I hauled over our bits and pieces of furniture, our clothes and whatever other few possessions we had to our name. At 11 p.m. we finally got the beds through the door and set them up in the rooms. Then we tried to settle down to sleep, although that was virtually impossible with the excitement of being in our grand new abode. The wee fella, Daniel, hadn’t yet turned six, and I think he was probably more excited than any of us. You’d think to look at him that it was Christmas morning as he raced from room to room examining every nook and cranny. I had a terrible job keeping him away from the taps. He kept turning them on and off to see the water gushing out of them. The flush toilet was going every few minutes, and I don’t think nature was working overtime on him. It was just the novelty of it all.

  When I wrote to Francie and informed him that we were in the house, he wrote back and told me to make sure that I got the local priest to bless it. ‘I hope the council won’t be mad at you for going in too soon,’ he added. It was another few weeks before the council’s official letter arrived, but by that time we had made ourselves at home in our lovely new surroundings. It was a cosy little nest, and I could hardly wait for Francie to come home and see it for himself. For the first time in our married life we finally had a home we could call our own.

  I’ll never forget the look on Francie’s face when he arrived home that Christmas. As the car pulled up, I could see him looking round and admiring the new cottage. We all rushed out to greet him. One of the children took his case, and Francie and I strolled up to the house. As we reached the entrance, he put a hand on each side of the door frame and said, ‘It’s nice to be going into your own home.’ That was one of Francie’s happiest days: to see us all enjoying such comfort in a lovely, modern dwelling.

  I had been saving for about a year to buy new things for the house. When you go into a new home you have everything to buy for it. I made extra money by knitting sweaters and selling them. I also tried to save something out of the money Francie sent home to provide for our living expenses. Then I’d go out and search for bargains. Not a penny was squandered as I gradually accumulated the essential items and some decorations that we needed for the new place. Shiny new pots and pans sat on top of the range. There was a dresser in the kitchen, all decked out with lovely cups, saucers and plates. I’d bought colourful lampshades for the electric lights, and there were new curtains for the windows. I got down on my hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush and I washed every inch of the floor to get rid of the dust. I chipped away at the solid lumps of plaster that were splattered here and there. Later I bought cheap lino for the floor covering. It looked real nice.

  ‘You’ve done a great job, Julia,’ Francie said after settling in. ‘I’m so happy here in our own home.’

  That happy period was short-lived. After a few months it was getting close to the time for Francie to leave again to pick up work in Scotland. He was nearly 49 years old, and the hard life he’d endured was beginning to take its toll on his health. Not that he ever complained. You’d never hear Francie moan about his lot. He just got on with it.

  ‘Daddy, don’t go away this year,’ Margaret pleaded with him.

  I could see Francie’s eyes watering. It was emotionally draining for him to have to leave his loved ones, particularly when he was growing weary of his terrible lifestyle. I knew it was a torture for him to have to leave.

  ‘You don’t need to be going to Scotland. Stay here with us, we’ll be grand from now on,’ Margaret begged. She loved her daddy. They all did.

  ‘I’ll go this year, but I won’t go any more,’ Francie finally relented.

  There were still a few weeks to go before he left, but I could see that Francie wasn’t himself. He shuffled where he used to strut along. And he had difficulty catching his breath.

  One morning when I woke up, he was sitting up in the bed. I yawned and propped myself up on the pillow. ‘How are you feeling today, Francie?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied. Then he smiled. ‘Do you know, you’re some sleeper,’ he added. ‘I have said a rosary for myself and one for you, one for John Bosco, one for Margaret, one for James, one for Kathleen and one for Daniel. I’ve said one for everyone who is sick and one for the dead.’ Francie shuffled a pile of novenas with his hands. ‘Do you see that pile of wee leaflets? I’ve read through all of those while you were sleeping.’

  I smiled at him. ‘The people who get the benefit of them will be eternally grateful to you.’

  I got up out of bed, and later, as I sat writing letters, I heard him on the move. When I went to see if he wanted some breakfast, I got a terrible fright. Francie was struggling to catch his breath.

  ‘I’m not too good, Julia,’ he sighed, the blood draining from his face.

  ‘We’ll get the doctor down, Francie,’ I said.

  He nodded in agreement. I knew then that he must be feeling real bad because Francie wouldn’t want the doctor unless he was in serious pain.

  By the time the doctor arrived, Francie’s complexion had turned a deathly grey. The doctor took one look at him and said, ‘We’ll get you up to the hospital straight away for an X-ray, Francie. I’ll call for an ambulance.’

  We had no phone in the house, so the doctor drove down to the public phone in the village to make the call. After a short time he returned to the house with the news that there was no ambulance to be got. ‘I’ll take Francie to the hospital myself,’ he said. As he walked him to the car, Francie was struggling more and more to catch his breath.

  I was standing outside the front door in a pair of slippers watching him, and my heart was pounding against my chest with fright. ‘Wait till I get my shoes and I’ll go with you,’ I said. I rushed inside, but I was in such a state of panic and shock that I couldn’t find my shoes.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ the doctor shouted before slamming the door of the car.

  I went back outside and the car was heading off round the turn on the road. I could see Francie still struggling for breath as he looked back to see if I was coming.

  The time passed like an eternity as I waited for news of Francie’s condition. What was the X-ray going to show? As I stood at the gate waiting for a cousin of mine to return with information, a neighbour stopped to enquire about Francie. I was telling him that I was just waiting on news of the X-ray when a car pulled up beside us. There was a priest in the back, but there was nothing unusual about a car stopping as drivers were always calling looking for directions.

  The priest got out of the car and then I saw that he was being followed by Biddy, one of our relatives. My first thought was that Biddy had heard in the village that Francie had been taken away and that she was coming looking for news of him.

  It was the priest who stopped and spoke. ‘Are you Julia?’ he asked.

  ‘I am,’ I said, and a terrible feeling came over me.

  The priest looked down at his shoes. I knew then that he had come to me with some awful news.

  ‘Father, is there anything wrong?’ I heard myself asking.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his head shaking.

  My heart was racing. ‘Have you good news or bad news?’ I heard myself asking.

  ‘I have good news and bad news,’ the priest replied, lifting his head.

  ‘Is Francie dead?’ I asked, fearing that I already knew the answer.

  ‘I’m afraid he is after dying,’ the priest said quietly.

  When I look back on it, I think that I went into shock at that moment because I didn’t immediately react to this dreadful news that the priest was telling me. That my Francie was gone.

  Then the priest started to speak again. ‘The good news is that your Francie got the last rites before he died, by a strange coinciden
ce,’ he revealed. ‘All the other priests are away on a retreat. I say Mass in Dungloe hospital once a year, but I wasn’t due to say it today. I met Biddy yesterday, and she asked me where I was going to be saying Mass today. I told her I was going to say it in Kincasslagh. Biddy then said how she was hoping it was Dungloe, as she was looking for a lift there. I decided then that I’d go and say the Mass in the hospital, and that’s how I was up there to give Francie the last rites.’

  Francie had once told a cousin of mine that he prayed he would never die without a priest. So he was granted that request.

  The priest told me more of the details, how Francie had died just as he was entering the hospital. It was God that had saved me from going with him because I wouldn’t have wanted to be there when he passed away.

  I was still in shock. I heard myself asking, ‘Father, did he have time to make his confession?’

  ‘My good woman,’ he answered, ‘that man had no need to make a confession. He went straight to heaven.’

  The priest shook my hand as I turned to enter the house. It broke my heart to see the commotion inside. The children had overheard the whole conversation and knew that their daddy was dead. They were inconsolable, and I just wanted to curl up and die myself. They looked like a pitiful bunch of lost souls as they tried to take it all in. They were heartbroken that life could be so cruel to them: they curled up in corners crying. I looked at wee Daniel, only six years old, and thought how unfair it was that he would never really remember his daddy because he was so young.

  Later the body of my darling Francie came home in a coffin. As four men struggled to manoeuvre it through the front door, I sobbed at the thought that it would be Francie’s last time coming into his own house. He’d had so little time to enjoy it. As they opened the lid of the box I felt my legs go weak, and I burst into loud fits of sobbing. A neighbour put her arm around me to calm me. I stroked Francie’s forehead and kissed it. He looked like he was just asleep. We laid him out in a candlelit room, which had a large crucifix on the wall. The wake went by in a blur for me. Neighbours came and went over a couple of days, paying their respects and offering support. ‘Sorry for your trouble, Julia, if there’s anything we can do, you know where we are,’ they’d say. I was grateful to have everyone around to comfort me, but no one could bring my Francie back to his family.

  No words can describe the pain in our house on the day of the funeral. The wailing of the children would have melted the hardest of hearts. Poor little Daniel didn’t really know what was going on, but he became very upset when he saw the coffin leaving the house. Daniel clung to it and cried, ‘Don’t youse take me daddy away. Bury him in the garden.’

  He held my hand and pleaded, ‘Please, Mammy, don’t let them take our dad away. We need him here at home.’ He kept crying, ‘Everyone will have a daddy now but us.’ Then he asked, ‘Will Dad ever come back?’

  I could barely get the words out and my heart was breaking as I said, ‘No, Daniel, God wanted him and we have to let him go.’

  I travelled in the hearse with the coffin, my hand resting on the head of it until we reached the chapel. When they lifted the coffin out of the hearse down at the church and placed it on a trolley, I helped to push it up the aisle and sat beside it during the funeral Mass. Afterwards I followed the coffin to the lonely graveyard and kissed the head of the box before it was lowered into the cold, dark earth. Every sickening thud of the clay hitting the wood felt like a nail being driven through my heart. It was a horrible sound and such a cold, cold feeling. I left the graveyard that day with a black cloud hanging over me, and I doubted that I would ever see a sunny day again.

  I looked at the children, the poor souls, and wondered what was going to become of us all without Francie. It was going to be a heavy cross for us all to bear.

  There was no consoling the children in the days that followed. I tried to tell them that Daddy was still with us and looking after us; it was just that he wasn’t physically there, and we couldn’t see or touch him. I would look at the five of them and say, ‘There’s a part of your daddy in every one of you.’

  Daniel didn’t want to go back to school. ‘I can’t go, Mammy,’ he’d say. ‘You will be lonely without Dad.’

  It was a long, hard, painful road trying to overcome our grief. There were moments when it became too unbearable. Kathleen stood with her back to the wall one night at bedtime roaring, ‘I want Daddy.’

  My heart went out to her, but what could I do? ‘Kathleen, we all want Daddy,’ I said, trying to calm her. ‘Daddy is away to heaven. He’s in a lovely place. Try to be happy for him.’ But I was engulfed with loneliness myself. At that moment I could never foresee any joy in my life, ever again. Even though Francie had spent every year of our married life working abroad, I had the comfort of knowing that he was always there in times of trouble. He was just a boat and train trip away from me. I knew that if there was a problem with one of the children, no matter how big or small, I had Francie to consult and share the responsibility.

  On the few occasions in my adult life when I’d seen a young man dying and leaving a family behind him, I’d said to Francie, ‘If that ever happened to you, I wouldn’t want to live another day. I would want to go into another coffin and go out after you into the grave. I couldn’t bear to see anything happen to you.’ But when it happens, of course, you get the strength from somewhere to deal with it. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself and my own loss because I was distracted by the children and their mourning for their daddy. I was also sick with the worry of how we were going to get by without him. Francie had always been the main breadwinner. Now I was on my own with a family of five. I cried myself to sleep worrying about our future. What was going to become of us? There was very little money in the family’s coffers because we had spent a lot on new things for the house, little knowing what terrible fate lay in waiting around the corner for us. Then I had the funeral expenses and the cost of a headstone for the grave. When everything was paid, I was virtually penniless. What was I going to do? I prayed to God and to Francie to help me.

  The widow’s pension from the government wasn’t a lot, but at least it would cushion the blow. To qualify for the pension I had to produce a death certificate, so I sent Margaret away on the bus to get it from a doctor. Some time later Margaret arrived home in floods of tears. The doctor had told her it would be four months before we’d get the certificate. Margaret said she had pleaded with the doctor to give it to her there and then as the family was in a desperate state with no money. He had glared at her over the wee, round glasses sitting on the tip of his nose and said sharply, ‘You’ll have to wait like all the rest. Your father was no more important than anyone else.’

  Margaret was horrified by those words. ‘My daddy was very important,’ she shouted in a fit of rage and hurt as she stormed out of the doctor’s.

  By the time she reached home, the poor girl was in a terrible state and dreading having to break the bad news to me. I was very angry when I heard about the attitude of the doctor and the way he spoke to Margaret, so I went down to the local priest, Father MacAteer, and told him what had happened. I asked for his advice as to what I should do. I told him about the desperate financial state that we were in.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs O’Donnell. We’ll get it all sorted out for you,’ Father MacAteer said as he tried to calm me down.

  He gave me a letter stating that Francie and myself had been married in Kincasslagh and that he had been the priest who had buried Francie. This was sufficient for me to be granted the pension, and it came through a few weeks later.

  I sat down one night and tried to work out the sums, hoping that we could make ends meet. The widow’s pension didn’t stretch very far. Without more money coming into the house, we were going to be in dire straits. Day in and day out I prayed that something would turn up to change our fortunes. Then one day a letter arrived from America with some welcome news. It was from a man called Matt Cavanagh, who was married
to one of my cousins. Matt had heard that life had become a struggle for us. I knew him by reputation to be a very kind and caring man. Our tale of woe had reached him through family members; they say that bad news travels fast and to far-off corners. It had troubled Matt’s mind to think of a family in need back home in Ireland, especially after enduring the pain of losing a loved one.

  Matt had a proposition for me. He said that if I was willing to hand-knit sweaters, he would find a market for them in America. As I read the words over and over, the dark cloud lifted. Knitting, of course, was second nature to me, and to be able to earn a living from it for my family was a great opportunity. It had been such a long time since I’d smiled, but Matt’s good-natured gesture lit up my face with joy when I read his words. I wrote back to him that very same day accepting his kind offer.

  In a strange way the struggle to provide for my family and my concentration on that effort helped me to cope with my grief over Francie’s sudden passing. It kept me busy, and my mind was constantly occupied by the work and the effort to produce as many sweaters as was humanly possible for me to knit every day. Once I started my new little industry, there was no stopping me. All day, every day, you’d find me in a corner with two needles dancing between my fingers. In periods when I needed extra cash, I’d stay up knitting through the night when every other body was sleeping. I’d finish off a new batch of sweaters and then make up packages for the mail the next day. Sometimes it would be 4 a.m. when I’d finally fall into my bed from exhaustion. I didn’t care about the tiredness. The work meant that I was self-sufficient, and as long as the market for the sweaters lasted I knew that we would be okay. We were going to get through this terrible time. Matt has since passed on, and I’m sure he’s in heaven with Francie. God rest his soul.