Death of Mark Connneely,Curraghtown,Navan.

Living,as I do. opposite the Church in Dunderry,I get to attend and see an awful lot of funerals.Being the age that I am and respecting totally the many friends and neighbours that I have made and know ,attending funerals has become increasingly frequent for me the older I get.
I can say with certainty that I have never attended a happy funeral.Yes I have been to funerals where such was the suffering endured by the deceased that I was relieved that the person had died,but there was always regret at the passing of the deceased.
Death is no respecter of age nor status and it comes in many forms and for many reasons.
No matter what the age or circumstance there is no convenient time to die.
This little Parish we live in has had more than its fair share of tragedy in recent decades.
People have died well before their time by their own hand betimes ,by freak accident ,by hit and run and so forth.
It is desperate enough when people die after a decent life span but atrocious and difficult to accept even for the best of Catholics a situation where a child predeceases his or her parents.
By far the saddest funeral I have attended was that of Mark Conneely .
Mark Connealley's death was so bizarre and inexplicable that I cannot for the life of me make sense of it.
Here was a young guy,in his late twenties,with an expectation of a decent future ,as decent a guy as you could get ,going about his legitimate business on a quiet road at dusk ,when a stray cow appears from nowhere and he ends up dead as a consequence.A local nurse was first on the scene.
What bizarre forces combined to place the cow and the man on his motor bike in such a fatal embrace on a public road at precisely the wrong time for him.
It defies explanation and severely challenges my Faith I  must say.
Now something similar happened me maybe 30 years ago.But I  survived.I wish he too had.But no.
His parents attend Mass every Sunday in Dunderry.Both of them and his three brothers were devastated.
I don't know how they got through the day and are coping.
The Village was thronged for the funeral.No one knew what to say.All felt awful for the bereaved.
I saw several people in attendance who to lost children bleed salt tears in memory of their own  and in empathy with the family.
Prayer and time may heal.I don't know.
May the Lord Jesus grant solace to the family and those who love him.
Ar Dheis De go Raibh a anam dilis.