Ciara Kelly lost her sister Dara four months ago to cancer.
Dara passed away in February, aged just 55, and the radio presenter has spoken about how difficult it is to remain upbeat and keep going when in the depths of grief but that she has to for her four children.
Chatting to EVOKE, four months on, and Ciara admits that her happier moments are tainted with that guilt, and she even finds herself wondering why it was her sister who became sick and not her.
‘It hangs over everything; it’s like a pall that hangs over everything and kind of taints your happy moments, and even sometimes, if you are feeling happy, you feel a tiny bit guilty for feeling happy.’
‘I also think that’s the random nature, that’s my sister, but it could have been me, like, why was it her and not me? I sometimes think, why is life so random in this way and kind of unfair to her and to the family and all of that?’
‘And I think there’s a lot to get your head around, and then sometimes you just realise that you can’t get your head around it, and you just have to accept it.’
Ciara Kelly talks about being present as a mum when you’re grieving
Chatting to EVOKE, Ciara says she is driven by being a mum and the need to be there for her family, she explains: [You have to] ‘focus on the present and being present for, like I have four kids, and all that stuff.
‘You still have people you need to show up for in your life, and I think trying to find some joy is a good thing to do.’
Joy for Ciara means tapping into life’s simple pleasures, and in particular her 100 days of walking challenge, which she admits helped her get through her darkest moments.
‘It hangs over everything; it’s like a pall that hangs over everything and kind of taints your happy moments, and even sometimes, if you are feeling happy, you feel a tiny bit guilty for feeling happy.’
‘I also think that’s the random nature, that’s my sister, but it could have been me, like, why was it her and not me? I sometimes think, why is life so random in this way and kind of unfair to her and to the family and all of that?’
‘And I think there’s a lot to get your head around, and then sometimes you just realise that you can’t get your head around it, and you just have to accept it.’
‘I found I needed the walks much more than I realised, and they did get me out the door on days when I didn’t want to go out the door, which is very important too.
Staying busy with work is another distraction for Ciara, and her listeners were surprised and some not so pleasant, to see her return to the airways the week after her sister’s death.
‘I’m not saying this is a good thing at all, but I do think that I tend to keep busy as a way of coping with things,’ she shares.
At the time, she was interviewing Patrick Dempsey when the news came in that his Grey’s Anatomy co-star Eric Dane had also passed.
As she began to share her condolences, Ciara found herself telling him that she, too, had lost someone the week before.
‘He said: “Oh my God, I’m so sorry about your sister,” and we were kind of laughing [with a gallows humour] about it afterwards as a family because my sister was mad about Grey’s Anatomy and if she thought Patrick Dempsey was offering condolences on her passing, it would nearly have been worth dying, she would have been thrilled!.’
‘But loads of people commented on that clip that was seen by five million people or something because it’s Patrick Dempsey… and I saw them going “What’s she doing being back at work a week after her sister died? That’s crazy.’
Ciara hit back at the trolls, pointing out that while her employer would have allowed her to take as much time off as she needed, she’s not a public-sector worker and doesn’t have the option to take endless time off.
At the same time, she adds that she finds keeping busy ‘therapeutic.’
Over the years, as she has lost her parents, she’s also learned to be more open about her grief and to stop masking her feelings to avoid making others uncomfortable.
‘I remembered when my dad died, and he died suddenly, and I never saw it coming, I hadn’t given it any thought, I was about 30… I remember thinking months after he died, and I was still kind of traumatised and bereft… that everyone else moves on so much quicker than the people who’ve lost somebody and when they say to you, “How are you doing? You really just kind of have to say “Oh yeah, I’m fine” because that’s all they want to know.’
‘They don’t want to hear no, I’m still hollowed out with grief, so you say “Oh yeah, I’m fine”, but it leaves you very isolated, because you’re not fine at all, but you’re kind of masking now to make other people feel better, and I don’t really do that so much anymore now.
‘I will say “yeah no, I’m having a bad day’ day, I think being honest is good for other people, but it’s also good for us, because the masking thing is just an extra layer of hard work on top of grieving already.’
‘… I don’t think people mind if you are authentic, as much as maybe we think they mind.’
