Kieran Mulvaney

Apr 22, 2012 9:21 AM EDT

Dear Kieran - I visited the links, but found the HBO obituary especially moving and a beautiful eulogy to a good friend. Thank you for commemorating Bert Sugar's "life well lived" in such a way that it could be read - and his character and personality appreciated - by a small woman in a small study somewhere half way across the world. Thank you for posting.

- Sue

Apr 25, 2012 1:31 PM EDT

Its 2012!! ha ha whatever that means...sooo do whatever! You're such a gifted writer...Blessings on all roads you take! Rereading your books makes one see anew...

- Karen

Mar 29, 2012 10:13 AM EDT

Gosh, I can't believe how many weeks - months, even - have passed since I last visited your blog. I have been consumed with work for a lifetime, it seems, but here I am. Catching up. I really enjoyed this entry and have been similarly engaged with loss and death, since the passing of my grandmother when I was on the cusp of my transition to secondary school. There is a very good - short - book by CS Lewis that I have returned to many times. It is called 'A Grief Observed'. In his poignant, real way, Lewis somehow articulates the enormity of bereavement, following the death of his wife to cancer, without descending into sentiment. He writes of sex, quite early on:
"One thing, however, marriage has done for me. I can never again believe that religion is manufactured out of our unconscious, starved desires and is a substitute for sex. For those few years H. and I feasted on love, every mode of it—solemn and merry, romantic and realistic, sometimes as dramatic as a thunderstorm, sometimes as comfortable and unemphatic as putting on your soft slippers. No cranny of heart or body remained unsatisfied. If God were a substitute for love we ought to have lost all interest in Him. Who’d bother about substitutes when he has the thing itself? But that isn’t what happens. We both knew we wanted something besides one another—quite a different kind of something, a quite different kind of want. You might as well say that when lovers have one another they will never want to read, or eat—or breathe." (chapter one).
Write the book, Kieran. Make it fiction, or non-fiction, or a mixture of the two - like a docudrama, or whatever they are called. I believe that you would write it very well. I miss so many things that remain private, but especially, in advance of their inevitable passing: I miss my Mum and Dad. I came across a tiny little photo album amongst my belongings last weekend. I was looking through my battered old brown suitcase of memories that lives in my loft for something I needed to refer to for a talk, and there it was, dated '1979'. It contains what were my only photos at the time, as I didn't own a camera until later on that year and I know this predates it, because of the subject matter. They are of varying ages - there's one of me on my first motorbike, at 17 and one of me at 16 with my first 'proper' dress. A Laura Ashley creation. And there are two your Mum gave. One is of Michael at 17 with the longest, flowing locks you could imagine. The other is an old black and white of the 3 of you: I've written in pencil on the back that Michael is 13, Stephen is 11 and you are 10 months old. I took them with me to University today and borrowed one of their swanky cameras to photograph them so that I could email them.
Anyway, I guess I should go now as I can smell my dinner and I have eaten more cremated dinners than I care to admit, due to getting involved with something on my computer! I hope you're well. Sue

- Sue

Apr 25, 2012 1:24 PM EDT

I never heard of this movie. Wow, need to see if its Netflixed...actually I had begun to reread At The Ends Of The Earth and half way through said...geeze whats Mulvaney up to!! So here...am I. As always Kieran you inspire! Thanks!

- Karen

Dec 30, 2011 7:20 AM EST

Dear Kieran, what a wonderful post. So full of hope and maturity. I am staying in Winscombe for a couple of days (28/12/11-1/1/12) in an unplanned but very valued 'time out' at my God daughter's home while she is in Cardiff. She says she likes me here and lets me use her spare key. This isn't something for you to put up on your website as a comment, it was just easier for me to make contact directly via the 'comment' function while I was on your blog than to open a new page, search for hotmail on an unfamiliar computer, open it, etc. I want to relieve you asap of any sense that I am expecting a reply to my email. Although I would love to hear from you, please never feel any obligation. I read your two most recent posts this afternoon with a glad heart and, I have to confess, a few tears. Silly isn't it? The Bible says somewhere "there is a time for everything." Well, enjoy your time Kieran and do do do 'live in the moment'. I visited my parents w/c 11/12 and spent my birthday with them for the first time in many years. My father almost died in Feb 2009 but with my Mum's love and good medical input, after he rallied, he has improved steadily. I stayed with them for the 3 weeks he was in hospital and spent a lot of time in the hospital's little chapel while my Mother was upstairs. Now, two years on, on the Saturday before I left (I flew on Sunday 18/12), totally unexpectedly, he was presented with a personally made honour by the Chairman of Clube de Vela de Lagos (his sailing club) in recognition of his commitment to sailing and the fact that he still sails his single-handed Laser dinghy at the age of 86 (87 in May). What they don't know is that he does this despite having had both knees replaced and one of his hips. That day, he also went out for a 2 1/2 hour sail. As a nod towards the actuality of his age and, I guess, his relative frailties, he only goes out when there are other club boats on the sea who know he is there, unless it is s formal race or the youngsters are getting some tuition. In both those scenarios, there is a rescue boat to hand. I live with a continual sense of awe for my Mother, whose love extends to allowing him to keep that part of himself that makes him who he is. She is no less brave for this than he is for sailing. I walked from their home in Monte Ruivo to Lagos (13km) that day and my heart missed a beat when an ambulance came screaming down the Avenida. My first thought was "Daddy! Oh God!" It wasn't him, but the thought was definitely there. I feel the proximity of their death like an ache inside my heart and really don't know how I will cope when it comes. There are some things you can't imagine in advance. What was the point of me telling you this? Well, while my sister and I were at my Aunty Dolly's 90th birthday in Pembrokeshire on 27th Dec, we received word that my Dad had been taken into A & E at Barlavento Hospital in Portimao, with a suspected recurrence of what had happened in Feb 2009. He is back home again now, but he will need an operation to remove his gall bladder. My Mum (89 in July), sat with him in a busy Portuguese A & E on hard seats amongst all the drunks and other patients until 4am, before they finally got home (20 miles away) somehow. Theirs was a redoutable generation. My Mum's health hasn't been too good lately, but it is less obvious in a way, because it doesn't really come with crisis, just daily challenges to keep on. She gets very tired, too (especially of cooking the evening meal - I can't say I blame her - she's been doing it for almost all their 58 years of marriage and 7 year courtship!). They've been over there since 1986. Live in the moment, yes, because you never know what is just around the corner. This afternoon, as I was coming home from a walk, I received a text message that the cousin who hosted Dolly's family celebration on Tuesday had just had a bad house fire and the house has been destroyed. The family has had to find rented accommodation. Dolly lives in their basement, backing onto the beach at Saundersfoot. They are all very lucky to be alive. Life never stands still, Kieran. Not for anyone. I have enjoyed being in touch and shall email you again no doubt, because I like to feel as though there's some kind of a connection. So... even though you don't know any of the people that I write about, you have known me and that's enough. Just promise me that you'll forgive me if I end up repeating things from time to time! Take care and many blessings for your coming year. Much love from Sue

- Sue

Jan 19, 2012 12:05 AM EST

Well - I'm now the proud owner of your paperback! I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Ice Bear' last year from the local Library and will re-read it. As the writer of this review says: it carries you along. For me, this was partly about your weaving together of story and fact. However, I found my response to the content, in places, really painful. This was mainly due to my abiding sense of impotence as to whether one woman's conservation habits might make any practical impact on our changing world. That and the contradictory, consumerist desires I have to travel, explore, and create! Oy-vey! ...happy writing Kieran.

- Sue

Dec 21, 2011 2:29 AM EST

Hi Kieran - what great news. I shall be there waiting in my local bookstore, with my 'happy birthday' book voucher grasped in a sticky little mitt. I hope you've cracked the Tombstone mission without losing too much hair to stressful deadlines and, if it is released in the public domain, really look forward to reading it. Take care and have a wonderful Christmas.

- Sue

Dec 21, 2011 3:02 AM EST

Hi Sue, thanks so much as always. Haven't even had a chance to start on Tombstone, I've been so overwhelmed with work - hence few posts here and I STILL haven't replied to your email. But it's first on the docket for the New Year. Enjoy the holidays and talk to you soon.

- Kieran

Feb 06, 2012 1:06 PM EST

Looks like I found the next bedtime read for my 6 year old conservationist in the making. Granted she's not likely to bump into a polar bear in the north-end of Liverpool, but who knows where her little life will lead her to.

Hope the sales go well. Best of British to you Kieran.

- Fran@myboxingcoach.com