August 18, 2019 was a red letter day for me - and okay, for a few hundred others. That day, my husband and I traveled to Ashford Castle in Cong, Co Mayo and listened to my hero, the inspirational and amazing story teller, Nora Roberts...

It was an accident, the first time. Or a mistake. Either way it was completelyunintended. I mean, I’m a city girl at heart.

No time to stem the flood of shame that I had allowed the man to live like this, that I didn’t fix this, no time to overcome this unpleasant reality. No time. Before the priest could arrive from the village the doctor told us, quietly, our dad was gone.

My heart was still beating fast but that could have been from the steady incline. I leaned my back against the uneven stone wall, warmed through by the late afternoon sun. I let the images in. And replayed it all in my head.