Remembering my mum: 'She still inspires us, 27 years later'

Sabina Nagle was devastated when her mother died suddenly at the age of 69.

“She was so active and well. It was a terrible shock to us all.”

Sabina had said goodbye to her mother that morning. She and her husband Ken were going to Kilkee in Clare, and her mother was off for a picnic on the Warren Beach in Rosscarbery with her partner Dick.

That would have been the last details of her mother’s day that Sabina would know, but for the kindness of a stranger.

“Following her death, I got the most beautiful letter from a woman who had seen my mother that day on the beach. She wrote that she had remarked on mam as she ran into the sea, turning back and smiling. She pointed her out to her husband, because of how lovely she looked.

“Later, she saw my mother lying on the sand. She was holding her head with the pain. But she was still talking to the people gathered, joking, and laughing when they had to keep moving her up from the incoming tide.”

This kind stranger observing the events that day worried when the ambulance was late arriving to the beach, having been diverted to a road accident, and so she kept an eye on the newspapers over the following days.

When she saw the death notice, she wrote her letter to Sabina.

“It meant so much to me that somebody would take the time to do that – to take such care,” said Sabina.

“We arranged to meet in Dublin, and she told me everything. 

"I got to know about the last few hours of her last beautiful day on this earth.

“Dick, her partner, was so heartbroken I could never really ask him much, but she was able to fill a lot in.

“It gave us great consolation to know that she was talking and joking right up until the end of her life.”

As she had lived

“Obviously, my mum had an impact on this woman,” said Sabina. “She had an impact on people in general. She was a wonderful spirit. She still inspires us, 27 years later.”

Nuala Branigan, Sabina’s mother, was originally from Kilkenny. She married Frank Harrison young, at 18. He was the manager in the local grocery and, like the woman on the beach years later, he couldn’t help but notice her.

“These were the war years and so there was rationing. He knew my mother came from a big family and that her father had died years before – times were tough.

“He’d put the extra sugar or tea at the end of the bag aside for her. It was very sweet.

“When they married, he introduced her to golf and tennis, and they played together for years. They were also great dancers, and they often danced together. My mother also had the most beautiful singing voice.”

The family eventually moved to a generous home in Limerick and following Frank’s retirement, moved to Baltimore in West Cork.

It’s these latter years of her mother’s life that Sabina most cherishes.

“One quality of my mother’s that was amazing, especially when we started having the kids, was that she gave equal love to everyone, to all of her grandchildren.

“We leaned on her quite a lot when our children were young, and she minded them at various stages. She was so wonderful to all of them and so all the grandchildren have really warm memories of her.

“Even my youngest, who was six when she died, remembers a trip they took together on the open bus in Cork. She made every moment count. She was joyous and full of energy. That’s why it was such a shock when she died so suddenly. Really, she was like a sister to me.”

Joie de vivre

“I always thought that as she was so young-looking that she’d last a lot longer when dad died,” said Sabina. “But she didn’t – she only lasted eight years. She was so youthful.

“A few years after my father’s death, she met Dick at the CIE ballroom dancing club on MacCurtain Street.”

He had lost his wife the same year she had lost her husband, Frank.

Nuala’s own health wasn’t entirely uncomplicated in those final years.

“She suffered a mini-stroke two years before the final one. She had been swimming on Myrtleville beach.

“It affected her peripheral vision and her left side,” said Sabina.

“Her loss of vision meant she couldn’t drive any more. She decided to move from Myrtleville, where my parents had been living, to Carrigaline.

“She was between houses and staying with us when she died. It’s funny but I could never picture her in that new house. In the end, she never made it.“

Sabina was alone with her mum in her final moments.

“I’m not sure how much awareness she had. I remember it well. I was there sitting with mam, and it was early, coming towards morning.

“I decided I would step out and ask some friends of mine to pray for her. I remember thinking she would hate to be in this position, not being able to do what she wanted to do.

“When I came back in, her breath had changed, and the nurse told me she was going. I whispered a prayer into her ear, and she died.”

Strength in faith

Sabina found great strength in her Bahai beliefs.

“I have been a Bahai since 15. My father found it hard when I came home, excited to share my great discovery. His family was from Drogheda and his Catholicism was important to him. He saw it as a rejection. It’s not that at all. Really, it holds that all religions are one; they are simply communicated in diverse ways. Funnily enough, my mother was much more tolerant.

“She went on a pilgrimage to pray I would come back to Catholicism, but in her later years she came to meetings and grew to love the writings. She knew that the spirit of the faith was good.”

It has certainly helped Sabina immensely.

“I think of my mother’s spirit as having been released.

“The Bahai writings suggest that the body is a cage, and when it becomes broken, the bird inside continues to exist. Its feelings become even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased.”

In the Bahai faith, the next world is close, closer than our life vein.

“It is here. It is like a baby in a mother’s womb. It is here, but a barrier prevents us from seeing it.”

Sabina had a dream shortly after her mother died.

In it, her mother was smiling, the same big smile the observer on the beach described - beautiful, glamorous, happy.

“It was a very brief little dream. She was in our front room in Montenotte. She was in the hall, hands out, with a big smile on her face. It was as if she was saying she was home.”