Let the busy world be hushed: A listening ear from a gentle soul
I half expected to see her sitting there, on the back seat, inside the chapel doors as the light of the setting sun streamed in through the high stained glass windows and illumined the spot where she sat every day.
For come the evening after their walk around the town, an ash plant in hand, they stopped by the church, both she and her friend at end of their day. There she lit candles for all the people who came to mind as her friend whizzed around the stations genuflecting at each one, rosary beads in hand.
People who called, in the duskish of the evening, to light a candle and say a prayer, would find them there, the two ladies, Margaret and Phil, only the light of the flickering candles to illuminate their faces in the depths of a winter’s evening.
They walked every evening, dodging along the river bank as trout leaped into the air out of the flowing waters of the Erne and up the steep hill where once the Military Barracks cast its shadow, stopping to greet familiar faces they’d meet, along the Railway line overlooking the Freisen cows, which lay in the lush grass below chewing on their cud.
Stopping to look over the low wall of the Railway Bridge where once the Narrow Gauge passed on its way to Ballinamore, gazing on a heron, standing still, in the reeds below, ‘The Last of the Summer Wine’, as passers-by stopped in their tracks to enjoy a chat, a smile or a laugh.
Though they walked and talked to many in their rounds of the town, they always paused in the evening of the day before Phil would walk Margaret home and Margaret walked her back again and Phil thought it best to walk Margaret home again.
There they entered into the silence of this hallowed place, dipping their fingers in the holy water font, touching their foreheads, their breast bone and each of their shoulders in blessing, separating in their way, one bound for the Via Dolorosa and the other for the light of the candleabra.
Here as she sat, people entered into the shadows of the church, deep in thought, burdened with their cares and having lit a candle and bowed their heads, they sat down in whispered conversation, unburdening themselves of what occupied their minds in the company of this lady who sat in the evening inside the door. Indeed the parish priest used to joke with her that she listened to more confessions in her passing through than he did in the box of a Saturday morning.
She had come to this town some 50 years before when she took his hand at a dance in the Palais Ballroom and waltzed the whole of the night, the girl from Alacken who thereafter became known as Johnny’s Margaret, whose father sold vegetables from an ass and cart around the streets of Cavan Town.
She loved this place that she came to call home, her stone house along the Railway line, four fine sons whose nature was as gentle and fun-loving as hers. Summer days spent at the ‘Bush’, a watering hole for cattle along the river Erne, which became for us as children, our Bundoran in Belturbet. Here she became synonymous with days out as she joined the caravan of people walking across the fields to enjoy the glistening waters of the Erne as she laughed in the line of mothers who sat atop the bank with their legs outstretched, a bank that was akin in our mind’s eye to the sand dunes beneath Rogey Rock.
And there to remind, a handwritten letter upon her locker written in the days before she died, folded neatly within a card from one of those ladies, sending her thoughts and prayers. ‘I wish I could get into see you but I don’t want you catch my cold. I was just thinking of the fun we used to have as we sat at the bush long ago’ and with the mention of that idyllic place along the river all those memories of those childhood days came rushing back to mind of those summers fadó fadó.
For come Whit weekend each year, she donned her cub scouts uniform, neckerchief and woggle and accompanied the children of the town on a camping outing to the Franciscan Friary in Rossknowlagh as we in sleeping bags all lay about the floor. Here she cooked for us and cared for us during those days that we all so much looked forward to and, though we were only away for a few nights, for a lot of us it was our first time away from home and Margaret was always on hand to dry up the tears when night drew in. So too was she there to listen after her walk around the town, listening to the hearts of people who, like she, had suffered for ‘a kindly turn of speech'.
Just listening in the ordinary of an evening, in the simple and everyday of life, lightening the burdens of those who travel on their journey through a word of friendship, a kindly turn of speech, oh how it was she made a difference, as she walked gently in the evening upon her way.
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