Fond goodbye to Stephanie
Stephanie Sheehan's funeral was a community coming together to say goodbye to someone everybody loved.
That sentiment had already been expressed privately by the stream of visitors to the Sheehan home at Martinstown over the two days since Stephanie had died, untimely and unexpectedly. But the public part of her last journey to and through Kilcullen was all-encompassing in the numbers and variety of people coming to say farewell.
There were grieving members of the Doyle family, from where Stephanie had come. There were friends of Herbie and his late wife, and friends of their children. There was a guard of honour organised by the Kilcullen Drama Group with which she had been involved. There were representatives from the former Old Kilcullen Rugby Club, where Herbie had associations. There were builders who knew Herbie from his job in Brennans. But most of all, there were the many members of the community of which they had both been a part for very many years. All came to the church where key points in Stephanie's life had been celebrated.
"This church was so much a part of her life," Herbie said in a short talk during the funeral mass. "She was baptised here, made her First Communion and was Confirmed here. And then she really fell on her feet when she married me here ..." Stephanie died on her 55th birthday, too young in any terms, but Herbie was part of her life for almost 30 years, a time during which, he said, they made 'some wonderful memories'.
He spoke of the 'nightmare' that had begun at the moment Stephie had died, but then how in the following days all the people coming to the house had helped so much. He thanked them, and all who had come to the funeral, as well as the choir and the priests of the parish.
Earlier, Fr Murphy had said the community in Kilcullen was 'in shock'. "And if this is what it is like for ordinary people, what must it be like for Stephanie's nearest and dearest?" he asked "It's too much to take in, in such a short time."
He related how Stephanie had been described by her family and friends, as easygoing, someone who fell out with no one, who 'had no bad bone in her body'. "She and Herbie were a very united couple, they enjoyed each other's company, they truly loved each other," he said. "They were like two swans."
He said that good memories of Stephanie abound, and they are now 'precious memories' which will be a source of consolation in the years to come.
"Faith was always an important aspect of life for Stephanie and Herbie, and it is from that faith, and that faith alone, that light and hope for the future can now come," he concluded.
