Awe-inspiring stuff single. It's amazing some of the stories behind a loved one passing. The ironic power of death.
The departed
- Thread starter Dreambeliever
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
The moral of this thread....
Treasure the people closest to you because you'll never know when they'll be cruelly taken away from you.
And that includes the ones you're not in speaking terms with.
I have got lots of patching up to do with my mom who isn't the easiest person to get along with. We hardly talk for the last 5 years or so.
Treasure the people closest to you because you'll never know when they'll be cruelly taken away from you.
And that includes the ones you're not in speaking terms with.
I have got lots of patching up to do with my mom who isn't the easiest person to get along with. We hardly talk for the last 5 years or so.
Wow some amazing posts here guys.
RIP to all.
RIP to all.
[quote author=Cassady link=topic=23384.msg564676#msg564676 date=1210260376]
If it comforts you all conscouisness in energy and energy cannot be destroyed.
[/quote]
not now, lad.
If it comforts you all conscouisness in energy and energy cannot be destroyed.
[/quote]
not now, lad.
[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=23384.msg564879#msg564879 date=1210275573]
I dont know if i have told this tale before so apologies if i have.
I was working (my first proper job) in Budget DIY, which is basically an Irish B&Q.
I was part time at first but went full time later. I loved the place and spent my days off and all my spare time hanging around there with the guys.
They were mostly older than me and were a very close bunch from Blacks road Belfast. I was a young dumb kid, but was welcomed into their world and treated (although with gentle ribbing about my age) like one of them. They helped me get in to Pubs and Clubs and basically i loved them all they were such a good bunch of guys.
We played football together during the week and they defended me fiercely if someone on the opposing team got rough with me.
I just loved being around the older guys, and loved having their influence wash over me, they were making a man of me, and i was having the time of my life being made.
Working in a big place like that you get a real sense of family, of everyone looking out for each other and its a real community spirit. The chief community liason officer (and one of the top lads) was a lad called Paul Cregan. He was a goofball and i thought a bit of a waster, but a totally adorable big tube who was only ever after a good laugh. He was a tremendously well loved fella and just had a huge spirit about him and drew crowds (everybody wanted to be on Cregies lunch).
I was in charge of the tool counter which was basically the whole left hand side of the warehouse. (its been 18 years and i could walk the floor and tell you what was where as if it was yesterday) so i didnt see the lads that much in the day as they all worked in Timber and Building goods. I worled with a lovely bloke called Michael Fitzpatrick who wasnt part of the group and was a bit of a geek and didnt really fit in, but was a top bloke and looked a lot like Peter Beardsley.
This one day Cregies came and asked me if i'd give him a hand getting something for a customer, and (any excuse to get off tools and out into the store) of course i jumped at the chance.
I dont remember the conversation we had that day as we walked down the shop, only that i was immensely proud that he had picked me to help him and not one of his longer standing closer mates. They may all have been busy, but i didnt care, i was hanging with Cregies. We walked down the shop and stopped near a bed display where the worktops where stored, and Cregies said something along the lines of
'Get shifting, they want the onyx one at the back'
There was a huge stack of 3m Worktops against the wall and i was there to help him shift them to get to the one at the back. I said something along the lines of
'Bollocks just lean them forward and i'll slide the right one out' .......If i could change anything in my life it would be this moment. I would go back and start humping those worktops out of the way.
Cregies ok'd my idea and we began to slowly shift the weight of the Worktops to a vertical. Physics took instant control of the situation and the stack (2 tonnes in weight) began to topple.
From this moment my recollection is vague and as such im only assuming this is what happened.
My first thought was Im going to get fired, and my second thought was FUCK THAT im getting out of the way. Cregies first thought was to tell me to get out of the way (later changed in the Belfast Telegraph to 'Pushed me out of the way'.......i dont know what his second thought was. I guess he believed he could stop them falling. He couldnt. Ten of us couldnt. It was a fucking stupid suggestion. It came down like a fucking hammer.
I stood and a halfway nervous laugh came out as i thought Oh fuck im dead meat. And then i froze.
I remember Martin Donnelly and Gary Smith taking their shirts off and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the police making me go back there and stand in his blood while they questioned me. I remember sitting in the canteen smoking (those were the days they say) when they came and told us he had died on his way to hospital. I remember long nights sat outside Budget DIY in the small hours on my own crying. I remember the funeral and i remember them telling me that it was the biggest non sectarian funeral in the history of belfast. I remember finding out that he was a basketball player, that he was in a hockey team, that he helped underpriveliged kids in the local area, that at 19 he was one of the youngest members of his town hall civic society and that he was seen as a pilar of the community and a benchmark for all the troubled youth of his particular area of belfast. I thought he was a bit of a fool.
I sat and listened as person after person came and said how amazing he was. I listened to the list of one so youngs acheivements. I sat with his drinking friends, and i felt alone. In his open coffin Paul Cregan had one eyebrow and one missing. A prank after falling asleep at a house party the week before. A party i had been at and heard the full repertoire of Paul Cregans drinking songs.
In Budget DIY they never fixed the floor tiles. They remained cracked. And as much as i had an affinity to the place and sense of kin with the people who worked there, the only people who could get close to knowing what i was going through. All that yet i couldnt walk over those cracked floor tiles. I left a while later and went to work in a different store (same company) and tried from that day to this to live with it. And mostly to supress it. I dont cry anymore, i dont even regret all that much. I will always hate myself for being too lazy to move some bits of wood so that a gentleman who deserved to fullfill the potential he had shown was able to live the life he so deserved more than some snot nosed kid with an attitude and a lck of respect.
Paul Cregan changed my life when he died. I dont know anyone from my life before then now. If you asked them i think they would say i was fun, but obnoxious and concieted and totally selfish. Maybe the people i know now would say the same thing, but want they cant say is that i no longer care, what they cant say is that i dont try to be a good person, to give happiness to anyone i meet, to be polite and kind and generous. They cant say that because i try hard every day to do SOME of the good that a better man would have done in the world were he still here.
RIP
[/quote]
God Oncy, what a read.
RIP
I dont know if i have told this tale before so apologies if i have.
I was working (my first proper job) in Budget DIY, which is basically an Irish B&Q.
I was part time at first but went full time later. I loved the place and spent my days off and all my spare time hanging around there with the guys.
They were mostly older than me and were a very close bunch from Blacks road Belfast. I was a young dumb kid, but was welcomed into their world and treated (although with gentle ribbing about my age) like one of them. They helped me get in to Pubs and Clubs and basically i loved them all they were such a good bunch of guys.
We played football together during the week and they defended me fiercely if someone on the opposing team got rough with me.
I just loved being around the older guys, and loved having their influence wash over me, they were making a man of me, and i was having the time of my life being made.
Working in a big place like that you get a real sense of family, of everyone looking out for each other and its a real community spirit. The chief community liason officer (and one of the top lads) was a lad called Paul Cregan. He was a goofball and i thought a bit of a waster, but a totally adorable big tube who was only ever after a good laugh. He was a tremendously well loved fella and just had a huge spirit about him and drew crowds (everybody wanted to be on Cregies lunch).
I was in charge of the tool counter which was basically the whole left hand side of the warehouse. (its been 18 years and i could walk the floor and tell you what was where as if it was yesterday) so i didnt see the lads that much in the day as they all worked in Timber and Building goods. I worled with a lovely bloke called Michael Fitzpatrick who wasnt part of the group and was a bit of a geek and didnt really fit in, but was a top bloke and looked a lot like Peter Beardsley.
This one day Cregies came and asked me if i'd give him a hand getting something for a customer, and (any excuse to get off tools and out into the store) of course i jumped at the chance.
I dont remember the conversation we had that day as we walked down the shop, only that i was immensely proud that he had picked me to help him and not one of his longer standing closer mates. They may all have been busy, but i didnt care, i was hanging with Cregies. We walked down the shop and stopped near a bed display where the worktops where stored, and Cregies said something along the lines of
'Get shifting, they want the onyx one at the back'
There was a huge stack of 3m Worktops against the wall and i was there to help him shift them to get to the one at the back. I said something along the lines of
'Bollocks just lean them forward and i'll slide the right one out' .......If i could change anything in my life it would be this moment. I would go back and start humping those worktops out of the way.
Cregies ok'd my idea and we began to slowly shift the weight of the Worktops to a vertical. Physics took instant control of the situation and the stack (2 tonnes in weight) began to topple.
From this moment my recollection is vague and as such im only assuming this is what happened.
My first thought was Im going to get fired, and my second thought was FUCK THAT im getting out of the way. Cregies first thought was to tell me to get out of the way (later changed in the Belfast Telegraph to 'Pushed me out of the way'.......i dont know what his second thought was. I guess he believed he could stop them falling. He couldnt. Ten of us couldnt. It was a fucking stupid suggestion. It came down like a fucking hammer.
I stood and a halfway nervous laugh came out as i thought Oh fuck im dead meat. And then i froze.
I remember Martin Donnelly and Gary Smith taking their shirts off and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the police making me go back there and stand in his blood while they questioned me. I remember sitting in the canteen smoking (those were the days they say) when they came and told us he had died on his way to hospital. I remember long nights sat outside Budget DIY in the small hours on my own crying. I remember the funeral and i remember them telling me that it was the biggest non sectarian funeral in the history of belfast. I remember finding out that he was a basketball player, that he was in a hockey team, that he helped underpriveliged kids in the local area, that at 19 he was one of the youngest members of his town hall civic society and that he was seen as a pilar of the community and a benchmark for all the troubled youth of his particular area of belfast. I thought he was a bit of a fool.
I sat and listened as person after person came and said how amazing he was. I listened to the list of one so youngs acheivements. I sat with his drinking friends, and i felt alone. In his open coffin Paul Cregan had one eyebrow and one missing. A prank after falling asleep at a house party the week before. A party i had been at and heard the full repertoire of Paul Cregans drinking songs.
In Budget DIY they never fixed the floor tiles. They remained cracked. And as much as i had an affinity to the place and sense of kin with the people who worked there, the only people who could get close to knowing what i was going through. All that yet i couldnt walk over those cracked floor tiles. I left a while later and went to work in a different store (same company) and tried from that day to this to live with it. And mostly to supress it. I dont cry anymore, i dont even regret all that much. I will always hate myself for being too lazy to move some bits of wood so that a gentleman who deserved to fullfill the potential he had shown was able to live the life he so deserved more than some snot nosed kid with an attitude and a lck of respect.
Paul Cregan changed my life when he died. I dont know anyone from my life before then now. If you asked them i think they would say i was fun, but obnoxious and concieted and totally selfish. Maybe the people i know now would say the same thing, but want they cant say is that i no longer care, what they cant say is that i dont try to be a good person, to give happiness to anyone i meet, to be polite and kind and generous. They cant say that because i try hard every day to do SOME of the good that a better man would have done in the world were he still here.
RIP
[/quote]
God Oncy, what a read.
RIP
[quote author=ILD link=topic=23384.msg568316#msg568316 date=1210615891]
[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=23384.msg564879#msg564879 date=1210275573]
I dont know if i have told this tale before so apologies if i have.
I was working (my first proper job) in Budget DIY, which is basically an Irish B&Q.
I was part time at first but went full time later. I loved the place and spent my days off and all my spare time hanging around there with the guys.
They were mostly older than me and were a very close bunch from Blacks road Belfast. I was a young dumb kid, but was welcomed into their world and treated (although with gentle ribbing about my age) like one of them. They helped me get in to Pubs and Clubs and basically i loved them all they were such a good bunch of guys.
We played football together during the week and they defended me fiercely if someone on the opposing team got rough with me.
I just loved being around the older guys, and loved having their influence wash over me, they were making a man of me, and i was having the time of my life being made.
Working in a big place like that you get a real sense of family, of everyone looking out for each other and its a real community spirit. The chief community liason officer (and one of the top lads) was a lad called Paul Cregan. He was a goofball and i thought a bit of a waster, but a totally adorable big tube who was only ever after a good laugh. He was a tremendously well loved fella and just had a huge spirit about him and drew crowds (everybody wanted to be on Cregies lunch).
I was in charge of the tool counter which was basically the whole left hand side of the warehouse. (its been 18 years and i could walk the floor and tell you what was where as if it was yesterday) so i didnt see the lads that much in the day as they all worked in Timber and Building goods. I worled with a lovely bloke called Michael Fitzpatrick who wasnt part of the group and was a bit of a geek and didnt really fit in, but was a top bloke and looked a lot like Peter Beardsley.
This one day Cregies came and asked me if i'd give him a hand getting something for a customer, and (any excuse to get off tools and out into the store) of course i jumped at the chance.
I dont remember the conversation we had that day as we walked down the shop, only that i was immensely proud that he had picked me to help him and not one of his longer standing closer mates. They may all have been busy, but i didnt care, i was hanging with Cregies. We walked down the shop and stopped near a bed display where the worktops where stored, and Cregies said something along the lines of
'Get shifting, they want the onyx one at the back'
There was a huge stack of 3m Worktops against the wall and i was there to help him shift them to get to the one at the back. I said something along the lines of
'Bollocks just lean them forward and i'll slide the right one out' .......If i could change anything in my life it would be this moment. I would go back and start humping those worktops out of the way.
Cregies ok'd my idea and we began to slowly shift the weight of the Worktops to a vertical. Physics took instant control of the situation and the stack (2 tonnes in weight) began to topple.
From this moment my recollection is vague and as such im only assuming this is what happened.
My first thought was Im going to get fired, and my second thought was FUCK THAT im getting out of the way. Cregies first thought was to tell me to get out of the way (later changed in the Belfast Telegraph to 'Pushed me out of the way'.......i dont know what his second thought was. I guess he believed he could stop them falling. He couldnt. Ten of us couldnt. It was a fucking stupid suggestion. It came down like a fucking hammer.
I stood and a halfway nervous laugh came out as i thought Oh fuck im dead meat. And then i froze.
I remember Martin Donnelly and Gary Smith taking their shirts off and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the police making me go back there and stand in his blood while they questioned me. I remember sitting in the canteen smoking (those were the days they say) when they came and told us he had died on his way to hospital. I remember long nights sat outside Budget DIY in the small hours on my own crying. I remember the funeral and i remember them telling me that it was the biggest non sectarian funeral in the history of belfast. I remember finding out that he was a basketball player, that he was in a hockey team, that he helped underpriveliged kids in the local area, that at 19 he was one of the youngest members of his town hall civic society and that he was seen as a pilar of the community and a benchmark for all the troubled youth of his particular area of belfast. I thought he was a bit of a fool.
I sat and listened as person after person came and said how amazing he was. I listened to the list of one so youngs acheivements. I sat with his drinking friends, and i felt alone. In his open coffin Paul Cregan had one eyebrow and one missing. A prank after falling asleep at a house party the week before. A party i had been at and heard the full repertoire of Paul Cregans drinking songs.
In Budget DIY they never fixed the floor tiles. They remained cracked. And as much as i had an affinity to the place and sense of kin with the people who worked there, the only people who could get close to knowing what i was going through. All that yet i couldnt walk over those cracked floor tiles. I left a while later and went to work in a different store (same company) and tried from that day to this to live with it. And mostly to supress it. I dont cry anymore, i dont even regret all that much. I will always hate myself for being too lazy to move some bits of wood so that a gentleman who deserved to fullfill the potential he had shown was able to live the life he so deserved more than some snot nosed kid with an attitude and a lck of respect.
Paul Cregan changed my life when he died. I dont know anyone from my life before then now. If you asked them i think they would say i was fun, but obnoxious and concieted and totally selfish. Maybe the people i know now would say the same thing, but want they cant say is that i no longer care, what they cant say is that i dont try to be a good person, to give happiness to anyone i meet, to be polite and kind and generous. They cant say that because i try hard every day to do SOME of the good that a better man would have done in the world were he still here.
RIP
[/quote]
God Oncy, what a read.
RIP
[/quote]
seconded.
[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=23384.msg564879#msg564879 date=1210275573]
I dont know if i have told this tale before so apologies if i have.
I was working (my first proper job) in Budget DIY, which is basically an Irish B&Q.
I was part time at first but went full time later. I loved the place and spent my days off and all my spare time hanging around there with the guys.
They were mostly older than me and were a very close bunch from Blacks road Belfast. I was a young dumb kid, but was welcomed into their world and treated (although with gentle ribbing about my age) like one of them. They helped me get in to Pubs and Clubs and basically i loved them all they were such a good bunch of guys.
We played football together during the week and they defended me fiercely if someone on the opposing team got rough with me.
I just loved being around the older guys, and loved having their influence wash over me, they were making a man of me, and i was having the time of my life being made.
Working in a big place like that you get a real sense of family, of everyone looking out for each other and its a real community spirit. The chief community liason officer (and one of the top lads) was a lad called Paul Cregan. He was a goofball and i thought a bit of a waster, but a totally adorable big tube who was only ever after a good laugh. He was a tremendously well loved fella and just had a huge spirit about him and drew crowds (everybody wanted to be on Cregies lunch).
I was in charge of the tool counter which was basically the whole left hand side of the warehouse. (its been 18 years and i could walk the floor and tell you what was where as if it was yesterday) so i didnt see the lads that much in the day as they all worked in Timber and Building goods. I worled with a lovely bloke called Michael Fitzpatrick who wasnt part of the group and was a bit of a geek and didnt really fit in, but was a top bloke and looked a lot like Peter Beardsley.
This one day Cregies came and asked me if i'd give him a hand getting something for a customer, and (any excuse to get off tools and out into the store) of course i jumped at the chance.
I dont remember the conversation we had that day as we walked down the shop, only that i was immensely proud that he had picked me to help him and not one of his longer standing closer mates. They may all have been busy, but i didnt care, i was hanging with Cregies. We walked down the shop and stopped near a bed display where the worktops where stored, and Cregies said something along the lines of
'Get shifting, they want the onyx one at the back'
There was a huge stack of 3m Worktops against the wall and i was there to help him shift them to get to the one at the back. I said something along the lines of
'Bollocks just lean them forward and i'll slide the right one out' .......If i could change anything in my life it would be this moment. I would go back and start humping those worktops out of the way.
Cregies ok'd my idea and we began to slowly shift the weight of the Worktops to a vertical. Physics took instant control of the situation and the stack (2 tonnes in weight) began to topple.
From this moment my recollection is vague and as such im only assuming this is what happened.
My first thought was Im going to get fired, and my second thought was FUCK THAT im getting out of the way. Cregies first thought was to tell me to get out of the way (later changed in the Belfast Telegraph to 'Pushed me out of the way'.......i dont know what his second thought was. I guess he believed he could stop them falling. He couldnt. Ten of us couldnt. It was a fucking stupid suggestion. It came down like a fucking hammer.
I stood and a halfway nervous laugh came out as i thought Oh fuck im dead meat. And then i froze.
I remember Martin Donnelly and Gary Smith taking their shirts off and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the police making me go back there and stand in his blood while they questioned me. I remember sitting in the canteen smoking (those were the days they say) when they came and told us he had died on his way to hospital. I remember long nights sat outside Budget DIY in the small hours on my own crying. I remember the funeral and i remember them telling me that it was the biggest non sectarian funeral in the history of belfast. I remember finding out that he was a basketball player, that he was in a hockey team, that he helped underpriveliged kids in the local area, that at 19 he was one of the youngest members of his town hall civic society and that he was seen as a pilar of the community and a benchmark for all the troubled youth of his particular area of belfast. I thought he was a bit of a fool.
I sat and listened as person after person came and said how amazing he was. I listened to the list of one so youngs acheivements. I sat with his drinking friends, and i felt alone. In his open coffin Paul Cregan had one eyebrow and one missing. A prank after falling asleep at a house party the week before. A party i had been at and heard the full repertoire of Paul Cregans drinking songs.
In Budget DIY they never fixed the floor tiles. They remained cracked. And as much as i had an affinity to the place and sense of kin with the people who worked there, the only people who could get close to knowing what i was going through. All that yet i couldnt walk over those cracked floor tiles. I left a while later and went to work in a different store (same company) and tried from that day to this to live with it. And mostly to supress it. I dont cry anymore, i dont even regret all that much. I will always hate myself for being too lazy to move some bits of wood so that a gentleman who deserved to fullfill the potential he had shown was able to live the life he so deserved more than some snot nosed kid with an attitude and a lck of respect.
Paul Cregan changed my life when he died. I dont know anyone from my life before then now. If you asked them i think they would say i was fun, but obnoxious and concieted and totally selfish. Maybe the people i know now would say the same thing, but want they cant say is that i no longer care, what they cant say is that i dont try to be a good person, to give happiness to anyone i meet, to be polite and kind and generous. They cant say that because i try hard every day to do SOME of the good that a better man would have done in the world were he still here.
RIP
[/quote]
God Oncy, what a read.
RIP
[/quote]
seconded.
I've not heard it before but I feel privileged to have read it now. I think it's one of the most honest, heart-wrenching accounts of a personal experience that I've ever read.
Oncy: Anyone can talk about something that's happened. But you make people feel like they were there, living it with you. It's a talent.
Of course, it only re-iterates what I already knew. Btw, I reckon Cregies would be proud mate.
RIP.
Oncy: Anyone can talk about something that's happened. But you make people feel like they were there, living it with you. It's a talent.
Of course, it only re-iterates what I already knew. Btw, I reckon Cregies would be proud mate.
RIP.
[quote author=Skullflower link=topic=23384.msg568348#msg568348 date=1210619613]
[quote author=ILD link=topic=23384.msg568316#msg568316 date=1210615891]
[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=23384.msg564879#msg564879 date=1210275573]
I dont know if i have told this tale before so apologies if i have.
I was working (my first proper job) in Budget DIY, which is basically an Irish B&Q.
I was part time at first but went full time later. I loved the place and spent my days off and all my spare time hanging around there with the guys.
They were mostly older than me and were a very close bunch from Blacks road Belfast. I was a young dumb kid, but was welcomed into their world and treated (although with gentle ribbing about my age) like one of them. They helped me get in to Pubs and Clubs and basically i loved them all they were such a good bunch of guys.
We played football together during the week and they defended me fiercely if someone on the opposing team got rough with me.
I just loved being around the older guys, and loved having their influence wash over me, they were making a man of me, and i was having the time of my life being made.
Working in a big place like that you get a real sense of family, of everyone looking out for each other and its a real community spirit. The chief community liason officer (and one of the top lads) was a lad called Paul Cregan. He was a goofball and i thought a bit of a waster, but a totally adorable big tube who was only ever after a good laugh. He was a tremendously well loved fella and just had a huge spirit about him and drew crowds (everybody wanted to be on Cregies lunch).
I was in charge of the tool counter which was basically the whole left hand side of the warehouse. (its been 18 years and i could walk the floor and tell you what was where as if it was yesterday) so i didnt see the lads that much in the day as they all worked in Timber and Building goods. I worled with a lovely bloke called Michael Fitzpatrick who wasnt part of the group and was a bit of a geek and didnt really fit in, but was a top bloke and looked a lot like Peter Beardsley.
This one day Cregies came and asked me if i'd give him a hand getting something for a customer, and (any excuse to get off tools and out into the store) of course i jumped at the chance.
I dont remember the conversation we had that day as we walked down the shop, only that i was immensely proud that he had picked me to help him and not one of his longer standing closer mates. They may all have been busy, but i didnt care, i was hanging with Cregies. We walked down the shop and stopped near a bed display where the worktops where stored, and Cregies said something along the lines of
'Get shifting, they want the onyx one at the back'
There was a huge stack of 3m Worktops against the wall and i was there to help him shift them to get to the one at the back. I said something along the lines of
'Bollocks just lean them forward and i'll slide the right one out' .......If i could change anything in my life it would be this moment. I would go back and start humping those worktops out of the way.
Cregies ok'd my idea and we began to slowly shift the weight of the Worktops to a vertical. Physics took instant control of the situation and the stack (2 tonnes in weight) began to topple.
From this moment my recollection is vague and as such im only assuming this is what happened.
My first thought was Im going to get fired, and my second thought was FUCK THAT im getting out of the way. Cregies first thought was to tell me to get out of the way (later changed in the Belfast Telegraph to 'Pushed me out of the way'.......i dont know what his second thought was. I guess he believed he could stop them falling. He couldnt. Ten of us couldnt. It was a fucking stupid suggestion. It came down like a fucking hammer.
I stood and a halfway nervous laugh came out as i thought Oh fuck im dead meat. And then i froze.
I remember Martin Donnelly and Gary Smith taking their shirts off and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the police making me go back there and stand in his blood while they questioned me. I remember sitting in the canteen smoking (those were the days they say) when they came and told us he had died on his way to hospital. I remember long nights sat outside Budget DIY in the small hours on my own crying. I remember the funeral and i remember them telling me that it was the biggest non sectarian funeral in the history of belfast. I remember finding out that he was a basketball player, that he was in a hockey team, that he helped underpriveliged kids in the local area, that at 19 he was one of the youngest members of his town hall civic society and that he was seen as a pilar of the community and a benchmark for all the troubled youth of his particular area of belfast. I thought he was a bit of a fool.
I sat and listened as person after person came and said how amazing he was. I listened to the list of one so youngs acheivements. I sat with his drinking friends, and i felt alone. In his open coffin Paul Cregan had one eyebrow and one missing. A prank after falling asleep at a house party the week before. A party i had been at and heard the full repertoire of Paul Cregans drinking songs.
In Budget DIY they never fixed the floor tiles. They remained cracked. And as much as i had an affinity to the place and sense of kin with the people who worked there, the only people who could get close to knowing what i was going through. All that yet i couldnt walk over those cracked floor tiles. I left a while later and went to work in a different store (same company) and tried from that day to this to live with it. And mostly to supress it. I dont cry anymore, i dont even regret all that much. I will always hate myself for being too lazy to move some bits of wood so that a gentleman who deserved to fullfill the potential he had shown was able to live the life he so deserved more than some snot nosed kid with an attitude and a lck of respect.
Paul Cregan changed my life when he died. I dont know anyone from my life before then now. If you asked them i think they would say i was fun, but obnoxious and concieted and totally selfish. Maybe the people i know now would say the same thing, but want they cant say is that i no longer care, what they cant say is that i dont try to be a good person, to give happiness to anyone i meet, to be polite and kind and generous. They cant say that because i try hard every day to do SOME of the good that a better man would have done in the world were he still here.
RIP
[/quote]
God Oncy, what a read.
RIP
[/quote]
seconded.
[/quote]
Thirded (if that's word)
[quote author=ILD link=topic=23384.msg568316#msg568316 date=1210615891]
[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=23384.msg564879#msg564879 date=1210275573]
I dont know if i have told this tale before so apologies if i have.
I was working (my first proper job) in Budget DIY, which is basically an Irish B&Q.
I was part time at first but went full time later. I loved the place and spent my days off and all my spare time hanging around there with the guys.
They were mostly older than me and were a very close bunch from Blacks road Belfast. I was a young dumb kid, but was welcomed into their world and treated (although with gentle ribbing about my age) like one of them. They helped me get in to Pubs and Clubs and basically i loved them all they were such a good bunch of guys.
We played football together during the week and they defended me fiercely if someone on the opposing team got rough with me.
I just loved being around the older guys, and loved having their influence wash over me, they were making a man of me, and i was having the time of my life being made.
Working in a big place like that you get a real sense of family, of everyone looking out for each other and its a real community spirit. The chief community liason officer (and one of the top lads) was a lad called Paul Cregan. He was a goofball and i thought a bit of a waster, but a totally adorable big tube who was only ever after a good laugh. He was a tremendously well loved fella and just had a huge spirit about him and drew crowds (everybody wanted to be on Cregies lunch).
I was in charge of the tool counter which was basically the whole left hand side of the warehouse. (its been 18 years and i could walk the floor and tell you what was where as if it was yesterday) so i didnt see the lads that much in the day as they all worked in Timber and Building goods. I worled with a lovely bloke called Michael Fitzpatrick who wasnt part of the group and was a bit of a geek and didnt really fit in, but was a top bloke and looked a lot like Peter Beardsley.
This one day Cregies came and asked me if i'd give him a hand getting something for a customer, and (any excuse to get off tools and out into the store) of course i jumped at the chance.
I dont remember the conversation we had that day as we walked down the shop, only that i was immensely proud that he had picked me to help him and not one of his longer standing closer mates. They may all have been busy, but i didnt care, i was hanging with Cregies. We walked down the shop and stopped near a bed display where the worktops where stored, and Cregies said something along the lines of
'Get shifting, they want the onyx one at the back'
There was a huge stack of 3m Worktops against the wall and i was there to help him shift them to get to the one at the back. I said something along the lines of
'Bollocks just lean them forward and i'll slide the right one out' .......If i could change anything in my life it would be this moment. I would go back and start humping those worktops out of the way.
Cregies ok'd my idea and we began to slowly shift the weight of the Worktops to a vertical. Physics took instant control of the situation and the stack (2 tonnes in weight) began to topple.
From this moment my recollection is vague and as such im only assuming this is what happened.
My first thought was Im going to get fired, and my second thought was FUCK THAT im getting out of the way. Cregies first thought was to tell me to get out of the way (later changed in the Belfast Telegraph to 'Pushed me out of the way'.......i dont know what his second thought was. I guess he believed he could stop them falling. He couldnt. Ten of us couldnt. It was a fucking stupid suggestion. It came down like a fucking hammer.
I stood and a halfway nervous laugh came out as i thought Oh fuck im dead meat. And then i froze.
I remember Martin Donnelly and Gary Smith taking their shirts off and trying to stop the bleeding. I remember the police making me go back there and stand in his blood while they questioned me. I remember sitting in the canteen smoking (those were the days they say) when they came and told us he had died on his way to hospital. I remember long nights sat outside Budget DIY in the small hours on my own crying. I remember the funeral and i remember them telling me that it was the biggest non sectarian funeral in the history of belfast. I remember finding out that he was a basketball player, that he was in a hockey team, that he helped underpriveliged kids in the local area, that at 19 he was one of the youngest members of his town hall civic society and that he was seen as a pilar of the community and a benchmark for all the troubled youth of his particular area of belfast. I thought he was a bit of a fool.
I sat and listened as person after person came and said how amazing he was. I listened to the list of one so youngs acheivements. I sat with his drinking friends, and i felt alone. In his open coffin Paul Cregan had one eyebrow and one missing. A prank after falling asleep at a house party the week before. A party i had been at and heard the full repertoire of Paul Cregans drinking songs.
In Budget DIY they never fixed the floor tiles. They remained cracked. And as much as i had an affinity to the place and sense of kin with the people who worked there, the only people who could get close to knowing what i was going through. All that yet i couldnt walk over those cracked floor tiles. I left a while later and went to work in a different store (same company) and tried from that day to this to live with it. And mostly to supress it. I dont cry anymore, i dont even regret all that much. I will always hate myself for being too lazy to move some bits of wood so that a gentleman who deserved to fullfill the potential he had shown was able to live the life he so deserved more than some snot nosed kid with an attitude and a lck of respect.
Paul Cregan changed my life when he died. I dont know anyone from my life before then now. If you asked them i think they would say i was fun, but obnoxious and concieted and totally selfish. Maybe the people i know now would say the same thing, but want they cant say is that i no longer care, what they cant say is that i dont try to be a good person, to give happiness to anyone i meet, to be polite and kind and generous. They cant say that because i try hard every day to do SOME of the good that a better man would have done in the world were he still here.
RIP
[/quote]
God Oncy, what a read.
RIP
[/quote]
seconded.
[/quote]
Thirded (if that's word)
Thanks lads, its so strange thinking back now, its almost like a dream, or a story i was once told, as i remember IT, but not the feeling of it.
Its odd how your mind eventually gets on with just existing when its known tragedy or devastation.
Somewhere in all the junk ive collected over the years is a photo of Paul that i wrote on the back of the day he died. Ive never been able to read it, but i believe it says im sorry.
Thats all i really have left.
RIP
X
Its odd how your mind eventually gets on with just existing when its known tragedy or devastation.
Somewhere in all the junk ive collected over the years is a photo of Paul that i wrote on the back of the day he died. Ive never been able to read it, but i believe it says im sorry.
Thats all i really have left.
RIP
X
Being younger than both my brothers, my time with our departed brother isn't nearly as much as I would've liked, but even though I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with him, he taught me no matter whats going on, laughter is the best way through it. The one thing i remember is him laughing, and I'll never forget that.
RIP Neil, you are sorely missed daily
RIP Neil, you are sorely missed daily
Family cat died this morning aged 18, older than me. RIP Cleo.
Fuck me Oncy, what a post.
My Grandad died last night in his sleep. He was 90, and the funny thintg about is that i'm not sad or greaving, but almost happy in a way, as he died happily in his sleep, with his mind at rest.
Everyone in the urology department came to say goodbye which was nice, and one of them even said they wouldn't be there without my grandad. (I should probably point out here than my Grandad was a surgeon, a urologist, and he even invented the urethral catheter)
Rest In peace grandad, a truly great man.
Everyone in the urology department came to say goodbye which was nice, and one of them even said they wouldn't be there without my grandad. (I should probably point out here than my Grandad was a surgeon, a urologist, and he even invented the urethral catheter)
Rest In peace grandad, a truly great man.
Sorry for your loss SuMo, my thoughts go out to you and your family
[quote author=singlerider link=topic=23384.msg720421#msg720421 date=1226432345]
Sorry for your loss SuMo, my thoughts go out to you and your family
[/quote]
thanks. What i'm going to find troubling is my mum, who is naturally devastated, and its hard to cheers her up
Sorry for your loss SuMo, my thoughts go out to you and your family
[/quote]
thanks. What i'm going to find troubling is my mum, who is naturally devastated, and its hard to cheers her up
Sometimes we are meant to be sad.
Just be there for her, that's the best thing you can do
Just be there for her, that's the best thing you can do
[quote author=singlerider link=topic=23384.msg720498#msg720498 date=1226437281]
Sometimes we are meant to be sad.
Just be there for her, that's the best thing you can do
[/quote]
yeah. and its all i need to do
Sometimes we are meant to be sad.
Just be there for her, that's the best thing you can do
[/quote]
yeah. and its all i need to do
Yes, it is. Good advice from single there.
Thoughts and prayers for you and yours.
Thoughts and prayers for you and yours.
Sorry to hear that SO, all the best.
thanks lads
[quote author=SummerOnions link=topic=23384.msg720385#msg720385 date=1226428489]
My Grandad died last night in his sleep. He was 90, and the funny thintg about is that i'm not sad or greaving, but almost happy in a way, as he died happily in his sleep, with his mind at rest.
Everyone in the urology department came to say goodbye which was nice, and one of them even said they wouldn't be there without my grandad. (I should probably point out here than my Grandad was a surgeon, a urologist, and he even invented the urethral catheter)
Rest In peace grandad, a truly great man.
[/quote]
Yeah, that's the way to do it. Live 90 years, invent the urethral catheter, then die in your sleep. Cool.
I mean, I'm sorry he's dead, obv, but you can't really complain - long life, genuine achievement, and no suffering. There are so many worse ways to go.
My Grandad died last night in his sleep. He was 90, and the funny thintg about is that i'm not sad or greaving, but almost happy in a way, as he died happily in his sleep, with his mind at rest.
Everyone in the urology department came to say goodbye which was nice, and one of them even said they wouldn't be there without my grandad. (I should probably point out here than my Grandad was a surgeon, a urologist, and he even invented the urethral catheter)
Rest In peace grandad, a truly great man.
[/quote]
Yeah, that's the way to do it. Live 90 years, invent the urethral catheter, then die in your sleep. Cool.
I mean, I'm sorry he's dead, obv, but you can't really complain - long life, genuine achievement, and no suffering. There are so many worse ways to go.
i'm not complaining mate. Its just slightly sad tis all
Sorry for your loss Summeronions.
What's a urethral franklin anyway?
What's a urethral franklin anyway?
[quote author=gene hughes link=topic=23384.msg723631#msg723631 date=1226709087]
Sorry for your loss Summeronions.
What's a urethral franklin anyway?
[/quote]
catheter. It drains urethral fluid from the body
Sorry for your loss Summeronions.
What's a urethral franklin anyway?
[/quote]
catheter. It drains urethral fluid from the body
Whoosh....
Grandfather just died.
Not nice being away from family at times like this.
RIP.
Not nice being away from family at times like this.
RIP.
Sorry to hear that DB.
All the best you and your family.
RIP.
All the best you and your family.
RIP.
