‘I couldn’t walk to the kitchen without breaking down crying’

Emmet McElhatton attends a support group which helps bereaved local families cope with road deaths

There is little value in trying to compare people’s pain, but it is true to say that each death brings its own unique grief, shattering the world around it in its own peculiar way.

Most of us like to imagine ourselves to be considerate people, endowed with the power of empathy and understanding.

However, try as we might, our capacity to imagine the suffering of others has its limits. There are some experiences that can be understood only by those who have been beset by them firsthand.

Last week, in a room on the top floor of Omagh Community House, I met a group of people united by a grief that most of us will never know.

It was a support meeting run by Life After – a charity that offers support to those bereaved on our roads.

However, what separates this group from others is that every volunteer – counsellors and coaches included – has lost a loved one in a fatal collision.

When I arrived, around a rectangle of tables sat eight women, each whose life has been irreversibly altered by a fatal crash.

On a wet Tuesday evening, sequestered three stories above the Strule river, six mothers, one grandmother and one auntie had come together, not to be healed, cured or fixed, but to spend time with people who knew what they had been through.

Entering the room, the ladies chatted away with one another, some nodding in my direction, others continuing their conversations.

After a few minutes passed, the vice-chair, Debbie Mullan, a Limavady lady who lost her son Keelan in a collision in 2013, invited me to introduce myself.

Given the intensely delicate, personal and painful nature of the trauma the women shared, it was agreed that nobody had to speak if they did not want to.

However, despite the offer to opt out, everybody shared at least part of their story, their bravery buttressed by a belief that exposing their experiences might encourage others to join the group.

“I am Marie O’Brien and I lost my daughter Caoimhe outside Strabane in 2016. She was 23,” began the woman sitting next to me.

“The next week, my brother-in-law Eugene was fatally struck by a car in Newtownstewart.”

Sometime after this unthinkable double tragedy, Marie decided she needed help.

“I came along to Life After, found support, and now I am the group’s secretary. I help Debbie run group meetings and I also do what we call ‘listening ear’.”

Marie explained that some people do not want formal counselling. Rather, they prefer to talk with somebody who understands the rare and profound pain of losing somebody on the road.

“I am not a qualified counsellor, I don’t have those skills. But what I do possess is the ability to relate.”

Everyone agreed this was the most important aspect of Life After.

As Debbie put it, the group is all about ‘families helping families’.

Looking across the table encouragingly as Marie spoke was her 91-year-old mother, Celia.

“I try to accompany my daughter to most meetings,” she said. “I come here to support her… and to get support myself.”

Determined not to let Celia’s modesty conceal the good work she has done for the charity, the ladies proudly reported that she has been one of their most committed fundraisers.

“She has done hot air balloon rides, went up in helicopters and never stops coming up with inventive ways to help us out,” said Debbie, almost boastfully.

“I do want I can,” replied Celia.

Next to speak was Kate Corrigan, whose son Nathan was killed in 2021 alongside his friends, Peter McNamee and Peter Finnegan, when the car they were travelling in collided with a lorry on the A5, Garvaghey.

Since the trio’s death, Kate has become one of the foremost campaigners for the proposed A5 dual carriageway, harnessing her own horrific experience to fight for life-saving change.

“After Nathan was killed, I could hardly walk to the kitchen without breaking down crying,” said Kate. “I remember feeling like there were so few people who understood what I was going through.

“I remember one person asking, ‘Are you not back to work? How do you fill your days?’”

This – namely, dealing with insensitive, unconsciously cruel comments – resonated with everyone.

Kate continued, “I saw Life After on Facebook and started coming.

“It helped, so I went to Debbie for counselling (which she offers members free of charge).

“I can honestly say that she has been an absolute godsend for me and my journey.”

Again, everybody agreed wholeheartedly, some nodding emotionally at the blonde-haired woman at the top of the table.

Jackie McHugh, who lost her only son and eldest child, Conall, in a collision, described Debbie as an angel, saying quietly and sincerely, “This is a very powerful group.”

Across the table, I saw one woman touch another’s arm consolingly.

They were Bridget O’Donnell and Katie Farren.

Bridget lost her daughter Lisa in December 2012 at the age of 16, when she and her boyfriend Kevin Conway (18) were involved in a crash on the Termon Road, near Pomeroy.

Like Kate, she found few were able to grasp how catastrophically her life had been changed by her child’s sudden death.

“People would – and still – say the most stupid things. You know, stuff like, ‘I don’t know how you do it’, or, ‘I couldn’t cope if I was in your shoes’.

“I hear that and think, ‘What, then? Is there something wrong with me? Should I not be able to leave the house? They might not mean to, but they make you feel bad for living.”

Inside, though, explained Bridget, it doesn’t get any easier.

“It never does. The fact is that no matter how much you wish you could bring them back, you can’t.”

However, though the group cannot undo the past, it can be an antidote to the isolation and loneliness, as Bridget attested.

“You feel a connection being in a room with another bereaved parent, one you don’t really get with anybody else. Nobody else fully understands, but everybody here does.”

Again, the woman next to Bridget, Katie, who lost her son Jonathan Scott five years ago, put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“You’re not alone,” she reminded her.

The central ethos of Life After seems to be one of self-sufficiency and symbiotic support. People go to receive help and, often, end up helping others – and vice versa.

This quality of the group might be best embodied by Debbie and her sister Keria.

“I watched Debbie come here after Keelan died in 2013 and saw how much it helped her, and how much good she was doing for others. I saw her put so much in and decided I would do what I could to help as well.” With a background in family support, Keria helps members manage their mental health and emotional wellbeing. Debbie told me she is proud of the part her sister plays in the organisation.

“Keria has always been a great support to me, and I love to see the difference she has made in the lives of other members too,” said Debbie.

Life After is a lifeline for severely-damaged people, many of whom feel like they are drowning in grief.

However, while it can help members keep their heads above water by lending them a hand to hold onto, it cannot pull them ashore.

“In all the time that we have been running these meetings, across the whole of Northern Ireland, more or less nobody has ever said it gets easier,” said Debbie.

“We all still long to see our lost loved one again. And it is not only that, you miss everything they were, but everything they could have been; all the plans you had made, all the things that was in front of them.

“You don’t only mourn for what you had, you mourn what you could have had. You grieve for the past, the present and the future.”

But, despite the fact the group cannot take away the pain or erase what has happened, it offers something everybody needs; people who understand. From the first day I came, I felt welcome,” reflected Kate, now almost two-and-a-half years on from her son’s death.

“There is no pressure to speak, but, at the same time, the meetings are open, safe and accepting, so you know you will not be judged, no matter you say,” explained Kate.

“But, above all else, the most important thing about this group is having support from people who have the same direct, lived experience as you.”