Jean's Journal: Our milkman was our 'RIP'
by Jean Farrell
Last week I wrote about how interesting RIP notices can be. The condolences added to these are also of interest and many folk like to watch funeral Masses online.
Mind you, this is definitely an age thing. I was in my friend Mary’s house recently when a RIP notice came in on her phone. Her two daughters were there. Well, they laughed disdainfully at us both. “Will you stop being so interested in the dead,” they said. “Get a life instead!” They had a point!
I’m sure we thought the very same thing, long ago, as we watched our parents poring over the full page of death notices that were then in all national newspapers.
We didn’t need RIP, back in the 1950s and 60s, to know of local deaths. Our milkman served that purpose. Very early, every morning, Brian Scanlon left Coosan with churn loads of what is now known as ‘raw milk.’
Brian called to lots of houses all over the far-side of town delivering his milk. This was unpasteurised creamy milk, fresh from Coosan cows. Brian was a most friendly out-going man.
By the time he crossed the bridge to our house, he had gathered all the news of the town. I can clearly see himself and my mother talking about the latest deaths.
Whenever I walk around Coosan graveyard, I pass the graves of some of these people. I think of Brian Scanlon telling of their demise, standing in our old kitchen, long ago.
Another thing that always comes into my mind, in graveyards, is the very thought-provoking poem, ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard,’ written by Thomas Gray, around 1750.
We had a great English teacher in Convent of Mercy Moate. She explained this poem very well to us and it made a big impression on me.
As the poet walked around a rural graveyard, he thought about the fact that some of those buried there could have been very famous – if they had been born into a different place, or at a different time.
‘Full many a gem of purest ray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, their sober wishes never learned to stray.’
My English teacher, in Moate, was called Sister De Lourdes. Her ‘real’ name was Mairead Ryan. She was from Fardrum. This nun was actually a first-cousin of Noel Ryan, who died recently. You will have read all the tributes to him, in this paper. The whole town has mourned Noel’s sad sudden death in Malta.
On Tuesday, April 1, my sisters and I stood waiting for the bus to the airport, down at Arcadia, here in Athlone. Who should come along, only Noel Ryan and his wife Deirdre.
We established that we were all flying to Malta, on the same flight. We chatted together for ages, because the bus was delayed. They were going to Malta for a fortnight and we were going for a week.
We met again a few times in Dublin airport. When we all landed in Malta, taxi drivers were waiting for us, holding up mobiles phones with passengers’ names displayed on them.
However, one man was holding up a huge piece of cardboard with RYAN written on it, in large writing. My sister turned around to Noel and said, “There’s your name up, big and bright.” He made some funny comment and that is the last time we saw Noel. Little did he know what disaster lay ahead. May he rest in peace.
From death to birth – or even pre-birth. I was reading an account of a couple who desperately wanted a baby, but were unable to conceive. IVF was much too expensive for them.
The woman wrote, “One day, scouring an adoption agency’s newsletter, I spotted something I had never heard of before. I read that you could adopt an embryo that was no longer needed after someone else’s IVF journey. It was quicker, cheaper and easier done than using donor eggs and sperm separately.” She did this and went on to give birth to a healthy baby daughter.
I will try and explain what I think it means – because it is amazing. Many couple use IVF in order to conceive a baby. This is an expensive and harrowing procedure. What happens is that fertile eggs are removed from a woman’s body. In a test tube, these are mixed with her husband’s sperm. Fertilisation occurs. A few of these fertilised eggs are then implanted into the mother’s womb. Sometimes one or two remain there and grow into babies. Sometimes they don’t.
Back to the test tube - the fertilised eggs (or embryos) that are not implanted into the mother’s womb are often frozen, to be used again, perhaps.
This is what the woman ‘adopted.’ She wrote that she ‘adopted’ an embryo no longer needed and had it implanted in her womb. The baby grew in her womb, but this baby was not the mother or father’s biological child. Isn’t modern science fascinating?
However, the Catholic Church strongly disagrees with this particular modern scientific development.
They believe that life begins at the moment of conception, so the Catholic Church maintains that embryos are human beings, with souls.
All over the world, there are huge freezers full of tiny tiny frozen embryos. Maybe these freezers are the new Limbo. The mind boggles!
jeanfarrell@live.ie