Reading Brigid’s previously un-opened letters forever altered my understanding of secrets. The determination with which I returned to Ireland, having immersed myself in the contents of the mail bags that held the life story of my relatives, was soon shut down. These were relatives who were a part of our family folklore, their story of emigration to America in the early 1900’s was filled with the glitz and glamour of the olden days. There was the odd black and white photograph which supported the embellished stories, and a set of mother-of-pearl china, that sat in pride of place in a glass cabinet in our ‘good room’.

My youthful enthusiasm for uncovering our family’s truth faltered at the first warning to leave well enough alone. There was a desire to hold onto the truth which those at home in Ireland had believed in. The faces looked back at me, emotionless, as I tried to understand why they would want to hide from this truth. It consumed me. No one wanted to carry their cross into the current generation; no one knew what to do with the pain in those bags—a pain that felt familiar.

Over the years, Brigid never left my mind’s eye; she became a source of constant internal debate. Then one night, amid my turmoil, she came to shake me from sleep, letting me know that it was time to tell her story. I needed that permission—after decades of fearing what lay behind that unopened door. I felt encouraged to speak of the unasked questions; the path was suddenly paved with possibilities and the information flowed.

The initial heartache that had once deterred me, no longer held power. In its place was a quiet   determination to understand their truth. I walked in their footsteps and chased down those who held the answers. I was met with a willingness to help—they all seemed to have a little Irish in them. I knew this road needed to be travelled, and their story told.

Brigid and Kate had succumbed to their fate through no fault of their own. Brigid with her longing for all that Yankeeland had promised. Kate— we were told was ‘different,’ she had the trauma etched into her soul.

There was something familiar in the quiet righteousness of it all—a trait not always considered becoming in a woman in polite society. I continually returned to the question: had they been born in a different century, would the course of their lives have been different?

That generation was long gone, yet their story remained. Documented in the contents of their estate that found me one September morning in Boston. Their life story stored in a drawer, in a cupboard—a container of history. Why had it endured? Why had those who guarded the darkest correspondence—their innermost thoughts laid bare—preserved it so carefully, as if waiting for its destiny?

I know that lives that are lived in pain do not allow for awareness. Simply existing becomes the sole occupation of the sufferer. There can be no doubt that they wanted future generations to know. Nothing about this was by chance, it was entirely by design.

Each piece held in the mail bags was like part of a giant puzzle. I felt both humbled and ecstatic that I was reading some of these letters for the first time since they had been penned. I pieced their journey together, with the fervour of an incurable sentimentalist—you either have it or you don’t. It has always been woven into the fabric of who I am. I collected stories like beautiful memories, letting them take the place of reality. It was easier that way.

Being told you are fiercely resilient when it was not a chosen attribute, told how lucky you are to have it, to be grateful for your childhood troubles. We are told that without adversity there would be no greatness; no thinkers, no writers, no singers, all rising above their scars.

Yes, it drives you.

Yes, it makes you powerful.

And yes, it makes you tired.

Honesty will reveal that they never asked for any of it, yet you cannot ever hand it back.

It was Brigid’s resilience that carried her beyond the confines of the village life into which she had been born. I will never know if she had a sense of knowing, if she was running from something she could never control or was she simply in search of a different way of life. What I do know is that she was an upstanding member of her community, from good Catholic stock. She had any number of marriage proposals the length and breadth of the county.

Yet something compelled her to move beyond the obvious path laid before her. What was it that pushed her through all the naysayers and do-gooders. Was it a knowing—an inherent understanding of what lay ahead?

Had she seen it written in the stars, or was it a presentiment buried deep within her psyche? There would have been no language for it then—generational trauma long before it had a name.

Hidden away in a drawer, in a cupboard—a container of history.

Truth is fragile.

I am glad that my youthful enthusiasm won.