I promised I’d publish my Eulogy to Kieran. I’m very grateful to Fr. Jonathan Boardman for kindly sending me his sermon, and to Fr. Toby Wright for his intercessions. Both were wonderful and added to the beauty of what was a really memorable occasion.
My Eulogy
What can I tell you about Kieran?
Well you will know now, if you didn’t know already, that he was a science-fiction geek.* Obviously, he loved Doctor Who. He also watched endless episodes of all the various versions of Star Trek; and I have lost count of the number of times that I had to watch the entire Star Wars series!
I can tell you the facts of his life. He was born in Colchester General Hospital on 9th July 1980 but was brought up in Peterborough. He went to Deacon’s School and then Peterborough Regional College, where he studied for his OND and HND qualifications in computing.
I can tell you that, when he was 20, he decided he’d had enough of Peterborough, packed a bag and took a train to Brighton, where he found a job working in the Sussex Hotel in Hove.
While he was living in Brighton, Kieran had a dreadful accident, falling from the Marine Parade and breaking his back. He spent his 22nd birthday in a coma but, according to his sister, Marie, on waking up he asked where his card from Graham Norton was!
I can tell you that Kieran held a variety of IT jobs, ending up working for Thomson’s Financial at Old Street in London, commuting in from his flat in Eastbourne. This is what he was doing when we met in 2007.
I can tell you that the day we met was the best day in both our lives. I’m not sure I used to believe in the concept of love at first sight, but this really is what happened to us. We knew, instantly, that we had each of us met our soul mate and the love of our lives. When the lease came up for renewal on his flat a mere five months after we met, there was no hesitation on either of our parts that the obvious thing was for him to move in with me. It was a decision that neither of us ever regretted.
I can tell you that Kieran changed a lot in the time we were together. I think everyone who has known Kieran over the past twelve years will have noticed by just how much he changed.
On a slightly less than serious note, I can tell you about how he changed in his culinary expertise. When we met he was, basically, living on a diet of burgers and pizza and never cooked. Indeed, he told me that he couldn’t cook. I well remember the first time I visited him in Eastbourne, looking in his cupboard to see what I might prepare for supper. Literally the only thing in the cupboard was a tin of foie gras. Well, at least he had taste.
How he changed. Once he’d moved to Maldon he started to cook supper when I was going to be late home. His Sunday roasts became an important fixture of our lives and were excellent. Barely six months after moving in with me, I came home to discover that he’d prepared home-made meat balls: hardly an easy thing to do, but they were delicious. That was when I asked him to marry me.
I will just add that there was a downside to Kieran’s newfound enthusiasm for cooking. There was the famous occasion when he served me roast lamb one Sunday lunchtime, with a variety of vegetables. Kieran always liked to have lots of different vegetables and, on this occasion, he had prepared green beans. I love green beans so you can imagine my confusion when I put a forkful of them in my mouth and couldn’t compute what was happening. I actually wondered whether I was being poisoned for a few seconds, until I realised that what he thought had been green beans were, in fact, green chillies. Imagine having a whole mouthful of those! A rush to the kitchen and gallons of water followed. When I accused him of trying to poison me, his response was “blast; it didn’t work.” Then there was the state of the kitchen after he’d cooked, which always looked as though a bomb had hit it. And he had a total inability ever to put anything back in the same place, which meant I could never find anythingwhen it was my turn to cook. Often, when I was trying to find a particular implement or pan, I would mutter complaints under my breath. Being visually impaired meant that Kieran had excellent hearing, so he always heard my muttering; even from several rooms away! His standard response was “You love me!” Of course, there was no answer to that; particularly if he had come into the room and accompanied the statement with his magical smile.
I can also tell you, but you probably know this anyway, that it wasn’t just me who loved Kieran. Everyone loved him. What was there to not love? He was the sweetest, gentlest, kindest, most caring and most loving person I ever met. His concern for others, and for their problems, was immense. I know that there are quite a few people here who were touched by his care and compassion.
Right from the start, he looked after and protected me. His smile, which could melt the coldest heart at 100 paces, and his sense of fun was inimitable. We made each other laugh throughout our time together; surely the most important ingredient in any relationship?
Nor was it just me whom he reduced to giggles. One of the most common comments I’ve received from people after learning of his death was that he was “hilarious.” He really was, and his cheekiness frequently reduced people to laughter at the most inappropriate times.
I well remember one Sunday when we were singing Palestrina’s Missa Brevis at Mass. I’d been waxing lyrical during the rehearsal about how I thought the Sanctus was truly the song of the angels, with its cascade of voices entering one over the other and it’s joyous Osanna. Just as I was preparing to conduct it during the Mass, Katie, who was standing in front of Kieran, sort of exploded and collapsed into a heap. Kieran stood there looking angelic and I had no idea what had happened. It was only later, when Mass was ended, that Katie told me Kieran had lent forward just before we sang and had whispered “I’m going to Osanna all over you!”
I referred earlier to how Kieran changed over the past twelve years. It’s something that so many people have commented on, and I think it’s fair to say that he changed fundamentally over that time. When I first knew him, Kieran was beset by demons. He suffered terribly from extremely low self-esteem, borne of a profound sense of rejection earlier in life and, to an extent, frustration that he’d not been dealt a particularly good hand. But Kieran was one of the most determined people I ever met; determined to overcome the obstacles that life had placed before him. As far as he could, he never let the fact of his visual impairment hold him back.
An example of his determination could be seen in the way in which he took up piano lessons. He’d had these when he was young and had been frustrated that he’d not been able to continue them. Shortly after we met, he started having lessons and learnt the first of the Bach 48 preludes, which Chris played before the service, starting lessons from scratch and performing the prelude in concert in just six months. A truly impressive feat. Though he felt that he’d not had the opportunities or support that others have earlier in life he was determined to make up for this, which is why he was so enjoying his OU degree; something at which, incidentally, he was doing really well; consistently achieving marks in the 80s and 90s.
Perhaps more importantly, and certainly impressively, he decided that he wasn’t going to let his demons define him for his entire life. It’s true that he had a couple of years of counselling and also had therapy but, in the end, I believe it was his own determination that got him to a point where he managed to work it all out for himself. In our nearly twelve years together, Kieran turned from a timid, rather insecure person who hatedbeing thrown into new situations and loathed being put in the spotlight, into a confident, engaging and thoroughly entertaining man. He still had his black moments but he’d learnt for himself how to deal with them. People have told me that I helped him to become the confident person that we all knew at the end. I don’t know about that, but I’d like to think that I was able to provide an environment for him in which he was able to grow, develop and blossom.
What I can say with certainty is that he definitely changed me. I know, incontrovertibly, that I am a far, far better person now than I was before Kieran came into my life. Quite simply, he was my better half and I am blessed to have had him in my life. We all are.
*the coffin was a Tardis.
Jonathan’s Sermon (note; parts of this are just headings, or aide memoires for Jonathan, rather than the full text given at the funeral. It does give a good idea of Jonathan’s wonderful address, however).
It’s not only our nation that can be divided into two kinds of people just now – its actually the entire world. So while I wouldn’t presume to think that every human being takes a position over a matter so divisive locally as Brexit – despite our innate national sense of self-importance most citizens of the world just ain’t bothered: for proof just look at the face – In spite of this I would still urge that today, globally, we all stand on one side of a significant divide or the other. I’m talking of course about whether you privilege Samsung or Apple products.
In the face of Kieran’s passion and expertise in all things IT and his consequent championing of the Galaxy Tablet my own blind loyalty to iPhone and iPad surely must have struck him as parallel to the position taken by an ignorant Brexiteer living in the fantasy world of Britain’s past greatness. O dear am I talking about Brexit again?….well it was a subject close to Kieran’s heart so perhaps I can be forgiven, and it is after all March 29th. Some people – I hesitate to say all people in lovely Essex – have been dreading this day on the calendar for over two years. But who could have predicted the way in which we gathered here today would all be facing a personal tragedy on the scale of a young life cut short at its most confident, at its most fruitful and at its most loved and loving? Personal loss of this nature puts so much into perspective.
Amongst so much else to celebrate and remember with gratitude about Kieran he had in my experience the ability to hold to and act upon matters of fact as he truly found them to be – something that casts the character of those lazy creatures of habit we so often assume into the distinct shade.
Why when having come to terms with your own sexuality shouldn’t you live it openly and with joy to the fullest extent? Kieran knew why: because lies and evasions suffocate and restrict growth.
Why when having the love of a life partner who truly compliments you and makes you more fully the person you are shouldn’t you cleave to him with both gentleness and strength, in moments of difficulty as well as those of pleasure? Kieran knew why: because life is for the living and when someone is alongside you on the journey they deserve honesty and faithfulness, as you do in return.
There was something so refreshingly and inspiringly honest in Kieran, something that I know we all admire; not only those of us who, like myself, think perhaps we have made too many compromises in life.
Human beings need and deserve love, and considering just how many of us there are on this planet there really ought to be enough to go round. But its truly amazing how often we feel the absence of love rather than its reassurance. Kieran was no different in that – human life and human character are frail earthen vessels that can too easily break. The value of the loves we experience can only truly be rated when they are taken away, when we are sunk deep in a contemplation of their absence or loss. The temptation is to think that love is gone for ever.
The Song of Songs……..
Colin and Kieran
World divided into two kinds of people ? Of faith and without faith?
I came across a Latin tag years ago which I have since treasured:
‘Bis vivit qui bene’ ‘The one who lives well lives twice’. Consonant as these words are with the spirit of ‘carpe diem‘ (gathering rose buds while we may, making the most of life’s little span), it is also an element of the philosophy which supports all the world’s religions. ‘Living well’, a Platonic philosophical concept, is an outward facing as well as self-referential principle. I thank God that in encountering the honest skepticism of someone like Kieran my own faith has been strengthened and my capacity to respect those of opposing conviction has increased. Where true charity is there love abounds.
Bis vivit qui bene– ‘the one who lives well lives twice’. Hidden within this epigram there is, of course, the
Christian hope par excellence – resurrection. But I like the way it’s also open to appreciation by those of uncertain or indeed no faith at all. Such a one was the poet A.E.Housman, a teacher to the WWI generation of youth lost too early, lost like Kieran in their prime.
His collection A Shropshire Lad contains real treasure:
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.
Now – for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart –
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.
Speak now, and I will answer,
How shall I help you, say.
Ere to the world’s twelve quarters
I take my endless way.
It is love and honesty then that unites humanity
Toby’s Intercessions
God of tenderness, the death of Kieran brings an emptiness into our lives. We are separated from him and feel broken.
Give us confidence that he is safe in your divine garden of eternity and his life complete with you, and bring us together at the last to the wholeness and fullness of your presence in heaven, where your saints and angels enjoy you forever.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer.
God of tenderness, we thank you for the gift of earthly love. For Colin and Kieran’s love for each other and for the love of his family and friends. We know that loves ‘flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame’. We pray that in the loss and pain that love may sustain and hold those who are left behind in our shock. And we pray that Kieran may now know the eternal all-encompassing love which you offer to each and to all.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer.
God of tenderness, we pray for those who mourn. Be gentle to them in their grief. Show them the depths of your love, a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. Spare them the torment of guilt and despair. Be with them as they weep beside the empty tomb of our risen saviour.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer
God of us all, your love never ends.
When all else fails, you still are God.
We pray to you for one another in our need,
and for all, anywhere, who mourn with us this day.
To those who doubt, give light;
to those who are weak, strength;
to all who have sinned, mercy;
to all who sorrow, your peace.
Keep true in us the love with which we hold one another.
Lord, in your mercy
Hear our prayer
God, we are told that you are compassionate,
Today this is hard to believe.
God, we are told that you love us,
Today we do not feel loved.
God, we are told that we should offer you our praise and thanksgivings,
Today all we have to offer is anger and confusion.
God, despite all these feelings we turn to you,
Today there is no one else to turn to.God, hold us until we can believe again.
God, love us until we can feel your love again.
God, accept our anger and confusion until we can offer you praise and thanksgiving again.
God, our lives and our feelings rise and fall but you remain constant.
Help us to rest in your eternal changelessness.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer.
Give us grace, in patience and understanding,
to listen to each other, and to help one another.
Supported by your strength
may our love for one another be deepened
by the knowledge of your love for us all
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who taught us to pray with confidence:
Our Father,
Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us,
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory
Forever and ever. Amen.
Indoor Voice 