SLEA HEAD, COUNTY KERRY, IRELAND - In 1995, after a painful divorce, I fell in love with a young woman who just stunned me with her beauty, wit, gregariousness and sense of fun. After years of distance by my ex, I finally felt there was a beautiful woman who cared for me and wanted to be with me. Her caring touch did so very much to heal the wounds and utter rejection of divorce.
Then, on April 8th, 1997, she died in a plane crash.
I couldn't believe someone so full of life, who brought laughter and energy and happiness to so many people, had been killed in the prime of her life. It was the ultimate in cruel unfairness...a cosmic irony that couldn't suck worse. And it crushed me, a one-two punch in which I had only just picked up my head off the pavement from my divorce, before it got slammed back down again with the news of her death.
Three days after I found out about the crash, I came out to these cliffs on the westernmost point of the coast of Ireland. I was a mess. It was raining, and there wasn't a soul around outdoors for miles. I sat for hours on the edge of a cliff several hundred feet above these pointy rocks, alternating between unbelievable sadness and blind fury toward God...
when suddenly, every moment we had spent together, every embrace, every kiss came flooding back, each memory so real and so detailed that it was like I was there with her, living it all over again.
And I swear, I swear I could hear her soft, sweet voice, plain as day, over the whipping winds and crashing waves...calling to me. And I knew that if I threw myself onto these rocks, I wouldn't have to wait to see her, I could see her immediately. And I absolutely did NOT want to wait one second longer.
My own father had committed suicide when I was 19, for different reasons...but somehow, on the edge of that cliff, despite being consumed by grief and pain, I considered my own small children and realized I couldn't possibly deprive them of a father, as mine had deprived me so many years before. Little did I know I'd meet
another woman years later, who would mean even more to me, and with whom I'd take a chance again in marriage.
Because of this, Slea Head will always be etched into my soul as the incredibly special place where I nearly joined her...and where my true leap of faith, my superhuman effort was in choosing life over death.
Shortly after, some very sweet friends wrote and performed
this song about us...I share it here in remembrance of her, gone eight years ago today, April 8th.
Cronaím thú, Cindy.
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