This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.
Michael Commane
In the heyday of the newspaper trade death notices and obituaries appeared on the front page.
In most newspapers the deaths are now recorded on the back pages and even there they are getting sparser and sparser. It’s not that people have stopped dying but like everything else in our lives even the dead have gone digital.
Scrolling down through RIP.ie last week it dawned on me that my name too will appear there someday.
The finality of death is mind-boggling. In recent days a young man, whom I knew, took his life by suicide; it has shocked me. I feel powerless and remorseful.
What if I had I chatted with him? He was far too young to die. Let’s remember him in our prayers/thoughts.
And that brings me to another side of death. Rachel O’Shea died last week in a nursing home in Kilcummin, she was 94 years of age.
Rachel lived and worked in the Castlegregory Post Office all my life and longer. She worked there with her late sister Mary Egan, who was the post mistress.
Mary was married to Sean Egan. The Egan family and Rachel lived their lives over the post office. As in so many towns and villages across the country the post office was an institution.
Castlegregory was synonymous with the post office and inside that post office Mary Egan and Rachel O’Shea plied their trade.
The post office was a homely welcoming place, where people felt secure and at home. Rachel listened to people while never betraying anyone. A villager recalled how he loved going into the PO, where he got the scent of mail and mailbags and at the same time was made aware that food was being prepared in the kitchen.
The post office is now situated in the Spar shop across the road, where it offers a professional service.
Over the years and especially in these last years I grew extremely fond of Rachel. I never once went in the door without she giving me a smile and saying an uplifting word.
Rachel thought everyone was great. She was a wise woman, who respected every customer, who came into that post office. Every child who called to the post office left with sweets. A mother told me her daughter never came home from the post office without telling her Rachel had given her sweets.
Rachel was a woman of deep faith, which expressed itself in her genuine concern and interest in those who stepped inside that door. She went well beyond the call of duty, and everyone appreciated that. She was gentle and generous.
We keep talking about how advanced we have become, the marvels of technology. Yes, it has its advantages but I much prefer chatting with people than conducting all my business by pressing buttons.
We’ve become slaves to our phones and tablets and aliens to our neighbour.
I’m reminded of TS Eliot’s lines: ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’
No technology, no AI, not the fastest hard drive on the planet could possibly replace Rachel’s smile and kindness.
I know Rachel would want us to remember her in our prayer.
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