Loss. It wasn’t commonly experienced by the Irishman, not since he was only a lad dressed in black attending his mother’s funeral. His father’s death had been so different, but both had gone by in a blur. Like walking through a haze you’re just waiting to wake from. For most of his life since he was young, he’d lived by the belief that keeping people at arm’s length meant not getting hurt. Eliminating the chance. Being self reliant meant not giving anyone power over him. He told himself he could be happy that way. A mantra chanted each day he woke up. Tell yourself something long enough and you eventually come to believe it. You don’t need anyone. You’re better off alone. You’re not good enough. Not worth it. Though he came to find that loneliness was a deep, dark pit you couldn’t fill with any amount of meaningless endeavors. It eventually consumed him. No man is an island.
The months that followed his father’s death dragged on, each day passing with an almost unbearable awareness - that once again, Declan had lost. He was coping with a series of them continually threatening to overwhelm him, to drag him under the current. He wasn’t sure how to feel or how to move on. Where to go. What to do. The sting of grief was just as apparent in adulthood as it had been in his childhood. But it was different somehow. He was older, had seen and experience more. Knew more. It was still a toxic mixture of pain and anger. He thought growing up meant gaining the ability to change things, to be in control - and to a certain extent it did. Just not enough. Declan was still a boy grasping at straws, trying desperately to obtain what was out of his reach. Afraid of the dark. Running away. Hiding. Pretending. He’d screwed everything up. Perhaps the life he’d suddenly come to desire, to crave, wasn’t the life for him after all. Everyone got dealt a different hand. Maybe what he now wanted just wasn’t in the cards he’d been given.
When summer rolled around, the Irishman decided it was time to finally return to the place he was born. To his heritage. To the house he’d left more than eighteen years ago. It was passed on to he and Emma jointly. He never thought he’d set foot in it again. It was his first stop, to get himself and Max settled in. He’d planned to stay for at least a week or two, maybe even three, and didn’t have the heart to leave his canine companion behind. The only steadfast relationship in his life really.
It was a few days before Declan even ventured out, having spent the first few going through his father’s belongings. Some of which had been his and Emma’s once upon a time… and some having even been their mother’s. Most everything had remained the same, as if they’d never left, and it was all untouched for months, perhaps even years for some things, evident by the coating of dust. Ultimately, it felt as if the house was occupied by ghosts, memories perpetually hainting every bit of space. Emma had come for the burial and stayed to get a few dire things squared away, but she couldn’t put her own life on hold for long. It had been dark and empty ever since, and at no point during the first few days of his stay did he even set foot in his old room. He couldn’t even bring himself to turn the knob of the door. Instead, he’d been staying on the couch.
When Declan finally forced himself to venture out, he visited the cemetery where both of his parents were laid to rest. He spent hours just sitting and staring at each of their gravestones in silence. There was a well growing within him, deep and empty and expanding beyond what he could even fathom. He couldn’t bring himself to speak or leave or properly mourn. He never had. He was entirely and irrevocably numb. They were like strangers to him now, distant, living only in the past. In hazy memories dulled and obscured by time. He wondered if he’d ever get clarity.
It was hours before he departed, opting to walk into town despite the graying clouds that had gathered overhead earlier. A typically gloomy Ireland day. By the time he made it to streets and surroundings once familiar to him, he was damp with the light rain that had begun to fall. He made his way to the pub his father used to frequent, entering unnoticed by the regular patrons that still inhabited the place. It smelled of stale beer and sweat and smoke. The music hadn’t changed much. He slipped into a corner booth at the back, keeping to himself. He found later on that there were pictures of his father hung around the establishment with other regulars and bartenders and the rowdy memories they had made.
No one there recognized Declan, much to his relief. They only knew of him. Nolan Tierney’s estranged son who had fled across the pond. Never visited or called or wrote. He didn’t make his reappearance something public, wishing more to observe and get a feel for the life he hadn’t been a part of.
After he’d made his way back to the house, he’d begun to write. He didn’t stop all summer, staying through the end of August. He made an understanding with his publishing house for his return in September. He was fleshing out a first draft by then. He never imagined he’d be published, having written more for himself as a way of coping and processing everything that had happened. Of coming to terms with and accepting it all. Of grieving. Of moving on.
It was one of the best decisions he’d made, not for the money or fame, but for his own peace of mind and accomplishment. Declan Tierney, the man who’d lived and died and came back to tell the tale.
Life: As I Know It. It read more like a work of fiction than an autobiography. The life of some poor character, not a living, breathing individual. But it was his, all his. His experiences, his choices and flaws and mistakes and consequences. His hard learned lessons. His love and pain. His fears.
The life and death and rebirth of Declan Tierney.
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
