My son got me back on track af ter Mam’s death, says Heffernan
World champion believes she is still looking after him
WORLD champion r ace walker Rob Heffernan has spoken about the devastating period after his beloved mother died – and how his young son Cathal helped him get over the grief.
The 35-year-old athlete said he believes his late mother Maureen was ‘looking down on him’ when he triumphed in his 50km World Championships race in Moscow earlier this year.
However, while his then five-yearold son’s pragmatic approach to his mother’s sudden passing helped him in the end, Heffernan admitted that for a period he was so ‘numb’ that he could not even face his children.
Heffernan dedicated his gold medal to his mother Maureen, who he described as his ‘greatest inspiration’, after he became only the third Irish athlete to come first in a World Championship in August.
The Corkman yesterday told how he was training in South Korea ahead of the 2011 World Championships when he received the shock
‘That time will always be with me’
news that his mother died of a heart attack at the f amily home in Ballyphehane, Co. Cork.
In a moving and honest interview with Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin on RTÉ Radio One, the sports star said he ‘cried non-stop’ on the trip back to Ireland and in the days after as he struggled to cope with the loss.
He said: ‘It ended up my mother had a heart attack, it was an accident and she was found at the end of the stairs. It’s still very raw to me.’
Interviewed alongside his wife and manager Marian, Heffernan revealed he was ‘inconsolable’ and could not even face his children – Meghan, now ten, and Cathal, eight – when he received the news. He said: ‘Anyone who has lost somebody, I don’t know if it’s instinct, you just want to be around your family at that time.
‘Me and my brothers and sisters, we stayed up in our mam’s house that time and we just wanted to be close together. Marian had to carry on with normal life with the kids and stuff, look after Cathal. I didn’t want to be near the kids or anything. I wanted to be near no-one.
‘I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to talk to Mar(ian), I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was inconsolable, I was completely numb.’
Heffernan and his wife, who was also competing for a place at the Olympics at the time, took the decision that she should return to South Korea to represent Ireland in the 400metres relay race. He said his wife had to return to the athletics championship – leaving immediately after the funeral service – because if she had not qualified it would be ‘another disaster’.
Heffernan remained in Cork and took Cathal to Redbarn in Youghal – a place he had spent many happy summer holidays with his parents and siblings. It was on this trip that Heffernan received words of advice from his son that would eventually help him cope with his bereavement. ‘I got a loan of the campervan off my brother-in-law – and me and Cathal spent a couple of nights down there,’ he said. ‘I can remember being on the phone and Cathal turned around and said, “You know, Dad, you’re on the phone all the time”.
‘I said, “Look, Cathal, Nan’s after dying and I’m very upset, I don’t know what to do” and he said, he turns around and he goes, “Dad, come on now, that was a week ago”.’ Heffernan added: ‘ He was kind of right. I still hadn’t qualified from the Olympics and you could suffer – fellas could go drinking or you could get depressed – but I decided I will deal with it in my own way.
‘I trained once a day and I raced in Germany six weeks later. It was a strange time but I think my training helped me get through it.’
The athlete, who said he is ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious’, said he believed his mother was looking down on him when he took home the gold at the World Championships in Moscow.
‘I felt like my mam was with me and I hope there is something afterwards because I never want to die,’ he said.
‘She’d always be in my head and that tough time will always be in my head. I think that toughness stands to you. Sometimes when you think you have a problem and they’re not problems at all. You have to appreciate the good times then, you have to enjoy them and not look at good times as being stressful.’