While he was away Sinead was due to start at the
University of Central Lancashire in her first year and we travelled up and
settled her into her new accommodation and eventually I was able to get my
wife into the car and travelled for 4 hours with her crying because her
daughter was not going to be living at home and wondering how she would
cope.
We had not heard from Kieran all day which was unusual
but sometimes he would forget to charge his phone and I assured my wife that
there was nothing to worry about as we were collecting him that night from
Stansted airport.
We live close to the airport and we got back early so
went home for a coffee to await his return flight from Ibiza. We had just
settled down when there was a knock on the door and there standing at the
door were 2 police officers who eventually told us that Kieran had died in
Ibiza that morning.
At that stage the world stopped
spinning and there was this big black hole where nothing seemed important
and the future without Kieran seemed bleak and pointless. I had to find the
strength to tell Sinead by phone on her first evening at University that her
beloved brother had died - thankfully a friend from college had gone Preston
as well.
As he had died in Ibiza the
complications were even greater as I had to deal with the Foreign Office,
British Consulates and Insurance companies all during that night while
struggling to make sense of what had happened. The immediate conclusion was
that it was a drugs related death as it was in Ibiza and to our horror the
following day it appeared in some of the national papers clearly naming him
and stating it was drugs, we had not even been able to tell all members of
the family.
I am still not sure where we
found the strength during that night and indeed the following six weeks
while we at first struggled to find where he was taken, then negotiate with
insurance companies only to be told we had to wait for a post mortem and the
courts to release him.
While still trying to get his
passing into our heads we were told by the insurance company that it would
cost £5,000 to get him home.
We of course had no choice but
to pay it and after a week we flew him home - a day I will never forget,
receiving him at Gatwick Airport Cargo hold. Because it was a suspicious
death we were given just 5 minutes by the coffin before he was taken away
again as the Coroner needed to carry out further tests.
A
further 5 weeks went by as they did tests and finally the interim report
declared that he had died from Acute Cardiac Failure and Cardiac Hypertrophy
(it was a relief in some ways to us that he had not died of drugs) and the
coroner released him to the funeral director and we were finally able to see
our beloved son after a long 6 weeks but at least he was home and now at
peace.
Those 6 weeks they were the longest period of our lives,
we had to arrange things but could not as we had no dates or any idea of
when we could put him to rest.
His friends were brilliant and we utilised Facebook to
create a page in memory of Kieran but also as a point for friends and family
to get the latest news etc. It was also a great place for getting photos,
memories and messages about Kieran.
This site still exists today with over 500 members.
On one of his many travels they wrote on the side of a
tent “We are not here for a long time, but we’re here for a good time”
............how true is this statement?
We used this saying as the Group Name on Facebook and it
has brought us many happy memories and shown us just how loved and respected
our son was.
We did not, like many others here, get a chance to bid
him farewell, to give him hug and a kiss, or tell him how much we loved him
and always will. He brought us so much love, happiness and so many memories
and the 3 of us miss him so much, but get so much comfort from seeing,
reading and hearing about him and how he managed to touch and influence so
many people’s lives from so many different walks of life during his short
stay with us.
He was totally unaware of how he affected people or how
they looked up to him and it is only due the these circumstances that his
true strengths and character came to light but we always knew there was
something special about him with his sense of humour, cheeky smile and
infectious laugh.
It is an honour to be his parents and to have watched him
grow into the person he was and everybody thought the world of him.
He is no longer with us and will not be a Nationwide
Branch Manager or get married, have a family and be a comfort to us in our
old age but he will forever be young, remembered by many and hopefully as we
start to fundraise in his name there will be fewer families having to go
through the loss, agony and despair that we along with other families are
going through.
