‘I’vechangedbecauseofwhatIwent through...youareneverthesame’
Nuala McKeever (53) is a comedian and lives in Belfast. She lost her partner of four years Mike Moloney in 2013. She says:
It’s four years since Mike died so suddenly and I think only now I am in a better place and coping with my grief. He had an accident on the roof at his home and fell off and died instantly — it was me who found him so I had to come to terms with the shock and disbelief of that.
Recently, I started doing creative writing classes for people dealing with loss and sharing experiences with others was so powerful. It was like finally finding people who speak the same language as you do.
I’m writing about grief at the moment for some work I am performing soon and I describe it as feeling like your loved one has gone away on holidays at the start and you wonder what it is like where they are — what sort of food they eat and what language they speak there.
Then you feel like you are away and you will be going home to that person soon. I remember the morning I woke up and realised that there was no coming home — this was the reality of my life now. Mike was gone and somehow I had to get on with life. It hit me like a truck.
I am very fortunate as I have good friends and family around me who have been there for me every step of the way.
I have a really good friend called Barbara who is also a counsellor and her gift to me was just to let me be. She didn’t try to fix me, she just let me be one day at a time.
After Mike died I found, and still find, that I seek out peace and quiet a lot of the time. Life was very noisy and cluttered and I wanted quiet. Now I barely listen to the radio or have the TV on. I just like to be quiet.
A few months after he died I went along to a class in the City Hall on mindfulness by Zen Buddhist teacher Paul Haller. Everything he said made sense and I knew that was what I sought. I started going to morning meditation classes and that was a massive part of my healing.
Only on Mike’s anniversary this year was I able to think out of something so tragic came some beautiful connections. I learnt not to sweat the small stuff and to allow myself space to heal. I am a much more compassionate person and I have changed because of what I have been through. Grief does that to you — you are never the same person again.
You learn that, yes, life does have its traumas and it hurts but you can push on through them.
I also went to Cruse bereavement counselling who were amazing and I am now a patron for them. I’ve done lots of courses and workshops on communication and I have learnt so much about myself.
At times, I wonder how I ever got through that first year without Mike — that was the toughest year of all, but it has taught me a lot about myself.”
❝ You learn that life has its traumas and it hurts but you can push on through them