Tragic story of Cork mother’s cancer journey touches hearts around world

ALMOST 10,000 people die of cancer in Ireland every year, and, tragically, young Cork woman Sheila O’Keefe joined that list on February 6, 2023.

A wife, a mother and stepmother, a daughter, and a sister, her death was deeply mourned by her family and friends.

She was laid to rest at a private cremation, and a public remembrance ceremony was held at her home - the beautiful and historic Blackwater Castle in Castletownroche, North Cork.

To those who didn’t know her, Sheila may appear to be another statistic, one of 10,000 this year, and 10,000 more next year, and so on.

Almost all of us will know the pain and suffering a family endures when cancer strikes in its indiscriminate way.

However, something Sheila O’Keefe agreed to do while she was sick has left a remarkable legacy. She has become much more than a statistic.

Rather, this Cork woman has become a shining beacon of bravery and of fortitude. And her story is touching hearts not just here in Ireland, but around the world.

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There is a chapter devoted to Sheila in an acclaimed new book by award-winning British author and journalist, Ben Judah.

Called This Is Europe: The Way We Live Now, it is an ambitious project in which Judah speaks to 23 people in 23 different places across the continent.

Each of the subjects has a story to tell about their life, and the book documents their hardships, experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

It is a book that details individual challenges and knockbacks, and doesn’t shirk the details - but it is also a book that shines a light on the strength of the human spirit, and the capacity of people to survive and even thrive amidst adversity.

Judah is not striving to be political, or to be pro- or anti- European; rather, he simply set out to listen to the remarkable stories of ordinary people, and relate them to the reader in a moving and empathetic way.

As he says himself, he set out to tell the story of how we Europeans are living our lives, in a snapshot of time.

This Is Europe reads like a work of fiction, as, in richly descriptive prose, Judah travels from big cities like Istanbul, Madrid, Berlin, and Budapest, to smaller places on the map such as Avdiivka, a Ukrainian city whose population has plummeted from 31,000 to 2,000 since the war broke out.

The final chapter is entitled Castletownroche, and we are introduced to Sheila O’Keefe, who agreed to be interviewed by Judah, to share her story about her life and her illness.

The author explains how, in the space of a whirlwind year, Sheila married Patrick Nordstrom - whom she met at the Cork Jazz Festival - and moved into his family’s historic castle in North Cork, erected in the 12th century, and also fell pregnant with their daughter.

A solicitor, originally from Corbally in Limerick, she is 36 and fit - running half marathons - but she isn’t feeling right. Is it because of the recent hectic events in her life, or something else?

Sheila’s health worsens, her stomach hurts, she is nauseous and is taken to hospital for tests; it’s the start of a journey with which thousands of families will be familiar.

The young mum initially rails against the illness, she has things to do: she wants to be with her family, she has ambitious plans to turn their castle home into a thriving business.

It is her husband Patrick who breaks the devastating news to her: “You have cancer in your colon and it’s spread to your liver.”

Sheila has an operation to remove the cancer, in 2009, and frets about making her will. Her heart-rending pleading and bargaining begins: ‘Just give me five more years.’

Judah draws the reader into Sheila’s world, and we are heartbroken for her, then relieved and thrilled to discover that the mother gets the extra time she wanted with her family; and much more than the five years she had bargained for.

Then... our hearts plummet and we find it’s only a reprieve, that the cancer is terminal - but that, remarkably, Sheila has tapped into a hidden depth of emotion to find acceptance of her fate.

She loves nature, and there is a spirituality to her, but she is not religious and scorns the idea of an after-life.

In the extended time that she had, Sheila even wrote a children’s novel called The Mystery Of The Sheela na Gig, which she based on the mysterious old stone carvings in many of Ireland’s ancient buildings, including her own Blackwater Castle.

The chapter about her in Judah’s book closes with her daughter, now a young teenager, coming home from school, and Sheila preparing to greet her.

It’s such an ordinary family scene, but, given what we know of Sheila’s illness, extremely uplifting. Yet, at the same time, is is one of the most poignant vignettes of a person’s life you will ever read.

The story ends there, but, on the facing page, we read a brief statement: ‘Sheila O’Keeffe 7-2-1973 - 6-2-2023’. She had died the day before her 50th birthday, and there was only just time to add that brief epitaph before Judah’s book was printed.

Since This Is Europe was published, it has won widespread acclaim. Judah earned plaudits for a previous book on a similar theme called This Is London, and his latest work has been described by The Guardian as “an epic work of reportage”, and “eye-opening” by the Sunday Times.

The Spectator compared the author to George Orwell, for “documenting parts of society that are easily overlooked”.

Of all the chapters, it is the one about Sheila O’Keefe that will stay with me for the longest time, and it will be the same for readers across Europe and around the world.

It is exquisitely written and moves the reader to tears.

That is some legacy for one person to leave.