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KATE DIED ON the afternoon of the 23 January.
She was born on the 24 January.
Kate is my daughter.
Kate was born still.
Stillborn.
Kate died kicking and screaming, fighting to live in my womb.
When you imagine birth, you imagine life.
The silence of her birth is still ringing in my ears. It is the loudest heartbreak.
The death of a baby before birth is a silent grief.
People can’t mention your bump and the baby that’s gone.
A headstone is the only place on earth (apart from our hearts) where her name is etched.
I grieve daily for the life that never grew up in this world.
I feel her body, I touch her face, I smell her but she is not here.
I recall her fingers, her torso, her long feet.
I held her lifeless body and dreamt of the life she would not have.
I never dreamt of a life without her.
I watch as others born at that time celebrate birthdays, communions, secondary school, first kisses.
My heart lurches for my child who does not get to do the same.
Hollow arms, aching heart.
Babies are meant to be born. Babies are not meant to be dead.
Sadly, thousands of people bury ‘stillborn’ babies every year. Perfectly formed, full term babies that are ‘stillborn’.
Our hearts as parents are not always still. We grieve the life we would have shared with our baby.
“What did you have?” they ask. “I had a girl,” I say.
“What did you call her?”…. “Kate,” I say.
“Is she sleeping well?” they ask. ”Like an angel,” I say.
“How many kids do you have?’ they ask.
That’s the hard one. I have three: one in heaven and two here.
The silence is deafening.
Written by Triona Mc Conkey (McHale)
Mother to Kate, 24/1/2002
Paddy 29/1/2005
Billy 5/7/2006
Triona sent TheJournal.ie this piece after reading Orla Ryan’s personal story ‘Then everyone died’: I lost four people I loved in 14 months. If there is an experience you’d like to share, please mail sinead@thejournal.ie
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Surely we should at least be checking stomachs to see if plastic is an issue?
@brian boru: All died from plastic at the same time? Not likely.
@brian boru:
Oh, plastic is the current buzzword, it must be plastic so!,
Its more than likely sonar. Sonar is used in oil exploration and during military exercises.
Not really a mystery when you see the amount of such activity in our Atlantic waters.
@brian boru: Probably full of condoms as they look like small jellyfish as well, go to any beach here and its full of them…
@TamuMassif2019: they must be full of seamen too so ;-)
We will act when no whales can be found in our seas.
@Winterfell: I’ve swam in Dollymount for 35 years and never saw a whale. The old dead whale hoax.
@Winterfell: What will Norway and Japan do then, kill dolphins?
@Paul Whitehead: not exactly the Atlantic is it
Until today, I was ignorant of how destructive active sonar is to marine life.
I was just reading that sonar on some American ships is way more powerful than the minimum needed to kill a human in the water. It stands to reason it can’t be good for whales/dolphins which are biologically designed to pick up sonar.
The government and the MSM have missed a trick here. Surely they could have pointed to Climate Change being the cause. Another reason to slap carbon taxes on all of us.
The Great Climate Change Shakedown missed an opportunity here….
Russian naval activity in the Atlantic. Destroyers passed through the English Channel yesterday on the way to the Atlantic. Bet there’s subs there too. I wonder are the Irish navy keeping an eye on things or playing Irish ferries in the med?
@Phil Keenan: It was a British ship.
@Phil Keenan: far more non russian than Russian. Those clickbait articles in the Sun are only there to incite anti russian hatred before the next government anouncement blaming them for something.
Like it was said earlier, the exploration activity off the coast is clearly a more likely explanation
Also, it could be deep sea fishing vessels coming into Irish waters to catch our fish. The whales are also being netted. Fishing vessels dump the unwanted catch back into sea. Read something about this happening in the north west Irish deep sea.
@Ashling Visser Bishop: absolutely. Also the sonar they use for catch location is probably as powerful as military grade.
“Whales are designed for dealing with pressure changes” who’s designing these whales I demand to know.
sounds fishy
Another one spotted in the water close to sligo today. Will be on the shore in a few hours.
What are US and UK subs doing in our waters, why is this not asked, a few months ago a trawler got into difficulties as it seemed with a sub in the Irish sea but that wasn’t reported anywhere.
Those military children and their war games and UK’s Trident using the XP Windows operating system, it is crazy.
It has been stated for years that the sonar is causing this but the military don’t care, it’s time they did.
Also… “We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and continue to work with the relevant UK authorities to reduce any environmental risk.
A necessary series of safety checks is observed and an environmental risk assessment is carried out before any underwater task is undertaken by the Ministry Of Defence, to minimise any potential risk to marine life.”
And again I ask what are they doing in and near Irish waters???
Saw one floating off Murder Hole Beach in Donegal on Sunday. Same colour as the ones above.
@Gavin Sheehan: Murder Hole Beach. What a fantastic place name!
There is absolutely no evidence of any kind provided here that naval sonar is the cause of these deaths.
Grace O Malley, pirate queer sorry what am l saying pirate queen……..she has not gone away yiz know…watch the sky
Saying there’s no evidence, instead of actually denying involvement in this, is like saying “you can’t prove it, so F off”.
Marine research vessel discovered coral reefs 300 miles off our west coast recently. How did they achieve that. SONAR maybe???
have your say