Chapter 1
She was a dreamer with all she did not have, a simple girl, the daughter of a sheep farmer. She dreamed of a life so far of her upbringing. Dreams that seemed shattered this day.
The winters cold gripped her still form. Yet she felt nothing. She stared silently down at the tombstone in front of her barely able to focus in on the words before her. She was numb inside and nothing would ever be right again.
She knew this.
She tightened her coat more closely around her and not because of the cold, it was to warm the chill that had overtaken her heart and soul the moment her father had come into the house with a stricken look on his face.
With one look, she knew something was horribly wrong. For a moment he stood there motionless, unable to speak.
She was unable to speak, in fear of the words that he had yet to utter past his lips. Once they had, she wished more than anything he had never spoken them.
She knew it was coming but how she wasn’t ready for it.
Her mother, her beautiful mother had come down with tuberculosis. It was painful to watch her deteriorate the way she did. Her once lively face had turned lifeless in the days just before her death. Her father could only sit quietly at her bedside, holding her hands.
And as she stood before her grave, lost in these thoughts, the first tear fell. The second and third tear snuck past and with it the outpour of continued tears.
A young Irish girl of 17 who was now being forced to confront a life she never wanted to live, one without the presence of her mother.
A life without the warm hugs her mother always seemed to have for her, never too busy in her day to give her the wisdom that only she seemed to know.
Her Father’s silent and stony face peered at her suddenly and as she brushed aside the memories, she reached over to grab the white rose that he held out to her, she grasped a hold of it so tightly that the thorn stuck into her palm.
She barely noticed the pain.
All she felt was the pain that ripped at her insides.
She closed her eyes, “I love you Momma” she whispered before she laid the flower at the base of the headstone. She wiped away the tears and she knew she’d never cry again.
Her mother had taught her strength and she knew that right now being strong was what was going to carry her through. She pulled her coat a little closer to her as the wind pushed her to and fro and she made her way from her Mother’s grave.
Her Father wasn’t a man of many words and since the passing of her Mother, he was barely a smiling man these days.
It was only her Mother that could seem to break the stony heart that lurked beneath his chest.
Even being his daughter he barely had many words to say to her, and it was ok, she was accustomed to it, her Mother had always taken the place of that, had filled up the room with her laughter and smiles and now that she was gone, Sarah didn’t know how or if her days would ever brighten again.
So it was with a dreary silence that she followed her Father away from her Mother’s grave site. She was buried in her special place. A place a few miles from their cottage, a place where her Mother spent many of her afternoons.
It was a place called the Dingle Peninsula over the Ring of Kerry, its ocean view was a pull upon her Mother that brought her peace whenever she was there.
Sarah would often follow in her Mothers wake, trailing after her as a child, curious of what she did with her time there.
But all she did was sit upon its green grass and stare into the waters below.
Quiet.
As the wind blew her red hair in its breeze.
Red hair with spiral curls that fell down her back. She had taken after her Mother in this regard, along with her piercing green eyes.
Many a passerby would complement her Mothers beauty and then take a look at Sarah and know immediately whose daughter she was.
Growing up her Mother would sit her upon the chair in the tight quartered bathroom and brush out the mass of hair while she would hum softly to them both.
The wind seemed even colder the more her thoughts strayed to the memories of then but Sarah couldn’t help where her thoughts were steering her.
She felt both sadness and comfort and struggled to keep the tears at bay.
Glancing up every now and then she realized she had fallen a distance away from her Father, normally he would chasten her on her slowness so she was grateful that the howls of the wind were the only things she heard.
Further she walks.
When she suddenly sees Peter, Peter Sanders a childhood friend that she had known for as long as she could remember.
He stood only a few feet from her, she knew he would pop up at some point, he always did.
He was her best friend and really the only friend that she truly did have. Her Father barely paid a mind to him. Her Mother always had a secret smile on her face when it came to Peter and she often wondered what it was all about, but she never did ask her why.
Now she wished she had.
Approaching closer to him he springs from the rock he’s sitting upon making his way to her, “Hey Sarah, how are you doing”?
His soft brown eyes peering hesitantly at her. “I’m ok I guess” she says quietly to him.
Peter knowing her so well says nothing, only continues to walk with her, slowing down to meet her pace. “I saw your Pops” he says to her suddenly, as if he knew silence was a place she shouldn’t be in right now.
He always seemed to know what she needed when she needed it. “Did he see you”? She asks of him.
He breaks out into a smile at her question and with a little jump in the air says “Nope, I was slick, I saw him from around the corner and bee lined it into the bushes before he could."
Sarah laughed at the gaiety in his voice.
He never ceased to make her laugh, even now and she was grateful to him for it. His hair had fallen into his face with his jump and without thinking she reached up to tuck it back behind his ear, “You never cease to amaze me Peter Sanders”, she told him softly.
“How about you come fishing with me” Peter says as he turns to peer into her face. “I can’t today, my Poppa needs me at home.” She replies regretfully.
“Awe ok” He says as he kicks a rock in the pathway in front of them. “I’ll meet up with you later though” She tells him; she could see in his stance how disappointed he was.
She watched as the smile crept across his face and she broke out into her own.
“Deal” he says as he sprints off into the opposite direction.
She watches for a moment as he runs off and stands still until he is nothing but a shadow in the day.
With a deep sigh she continues on, she didn’t have far to go, yet in this very moment she wished she had further.
It was only her Momma that brought light into their home, only she that could make the dimmest of days more bearable. Only she that could break out heartfelt laughter into her Father.
Her stories of her days as a young girl growing up in Dublin, Ireland, the stories and adventures that often as a child she wondered if they had in fact been true but oh how wonderful the stories had been and how much she had loved to hear them.
She wished she could hear them now.
Hear the joy in her Mother’s voice, see the laughter in her eyes and the way they had sparkled and twinkled with every word that spilled forth.
Sarah climbed over the coming hill and just over its bend she could see her family’s thatched cottage.
It was a small house.
It had a ground floor and two bedrooms in the lower storey. It was a cozy small dwelling nestled in the outskirts of Kerry Ireland.
It was home.
The only home Sarah had ever known and as much as she loved it, she yearned and ached for more.
Writing was a dream of hers, one that her Mother had encouraged every moment she could. Her Poppa didn’t seem to care for it much and in fact had argued relentlessly when her Mother had turned an area of the cottage into a writing place for her.
“She doesn’t need all of that” her Father had argued in protest.
“Hush it up” her Mother had told him softly,
“One day she will write and her words will bring others a world they never knew existed”, it was only her Momma that could sway the mind of her Father and so with only a few more arguing words, her Poppa remained silent.
As she approached the cottage door, she could see the smoke drifting up from the fireplace, upon entering she saw her Father bent over it, throwing in another log.
“Hurry and shut the door, you’ll let the cold in” he says gruffly.
Without a word Sarah quietly shuts the door behind her and sheds off her coat to hang on the nook beside the door.
Silence filled the room as she walked over to the cook house to prepare the food.
Without thinking she began to hum a song her Momma had so often sang while making dinner, “Hush that up now” her father demands of her before she got any further into the melody.
“Sorry Poppa” she quietly mumbles as she quickly stops her singing. She didn’t begrudge her Father his anger, she missed her Mother too.
She could only imagine the pain in Her Poppa’s heart. He may have a difficult way of expressing love to his only daughter but when it had come to her Mother, the love shone in his face and eyes each time he looked upon her.
It was her Mother’s gentle touch that would still the words from her Fathers mouth, a look that would bring her Father to a humble demeanor within seconds of her glance.
The evening dragged slowly on, the both of them lost in their own thoughts. And as Sarah finished dinner they ate in quietness.
It was only when her Father pulled out the Bible that Sarah heard him speak. It had been a nightly routine of her Mothers that she would read a passage from the Bible, so she was quite surprised when her Father reached over to grab it from her Mothers desk.
Clearing his throat, he read from the Book of Matthew, where Mother had last bookmarked her Bible,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
The tone and words swept over her softly and she was pulled back into more memories of her Mother. The tears threatened to fall but she held them back and as she listened to her Fathers voice reading God’s word, she was soothed within.
She listened more intently, allowing the day’s events to fade slowly away.
