Remembering Grace: A personal account from an old Irish friend

I apologize - I should have explained I live in the US - Texas in fact - and when I speak of smile and prayer - I mean direct conversation.

Were has humanity gone, everyone, wanting to blame, programs, situations, government agencies, the church, the US, the family, and even Grace for not asking. OMG - the situation was dire - the temperatures were below freezing - people brought their plants and dogs in. Why was their not one kind, compassionate individual caring enough to either take her home with them, take her somewhere warm, or call 911 and get her some help.... Would you have done it for a dog? I hope that when you take the time to make opinions regarding any type of posts, you are the same individuals whom report wrongdoings, and life and death situations. God hold Gracie close to you, fill her spirit will the warmth of mercy and grace, and may her remembrance let all look closely into their hearts with compassion for their fellow cuzins of the earth; in need of mostly a smile and a prayer at times. Let Gracie's death not be in vain, may it open the eyes of our churches to their priorities, and their people of need, AMEN

Why wasn't this story on the evening news. Wasn't it newsworthy enough?

SO.. So sad... If any reader has contact with Niall O'Dowd? Have him contact me (from the info on my I.C. sign in) If Grace is creamated? I have access to a remembrance park in Ireland.. where Grace will be most welcome... without a penny of cost! Contact O'Dowd.... And lets see if he contacts me??? Or if Grace is just another headline?

From spending time in an orphanage to her tragic end, it seems Grace had a very hard life in her short span of time on this Earth and like so many used drugs to escape the pain. It is not for us to judge her but to help others in similar positions for in truth it could always be us. May God have mercy on her soul and encircle her with the love and warmth that eluded her here and may her son find a way to reconcile what has happened to his mother so that he can live a fulfilling life.

This is all so sad for the family, particularly her son who I hope is surrounded by love and support. A couple of days ago the NY Times reported that when the Coalition for the Homeless offered assistance with a burial they were told that the parents had already claimed the body and didn’t want any help, and apparently the parents denied that Grace was homeless. Addiction is a terrible thing.

Grace's death reminds me of a conversation I had with a Catholic priest once,when I was about fifteen. One of those priest's that actually spent his life doing good for the community,visiting the unwanted in their own homes..People bitter about family who don't want them..Bitter about Life..Bitter about God. I asked him what does he think hell would be like. He asked me another question back, as is the Irish way..He asked me..What's the opposite of love? I said..I suppose hate. He said No! The opposite of love is indifference. He said.. That's hell and he pointed to his head. Happiness is a state of mind and so is hell. When the world treat's you with indifference,you are in hell. Poor Grace ;( (Disclaimer..This story may or may not be true. It could be subject to the right's and conditions of my own active imagination in getting a point across ;))

"Cold as charity". That's where the church has failed the people. Closed to the needy,open to the greedy. What a change from the original church of Christ that elicited the begrudging comment from the materialistic Romans "Lo, see how the Christians love one another!" If only the church was open to shelter the needy homeless instead of being a stony, cold place. Can God be present in such a place?

Always breaks my heart to hear of such things happening. Bless her heart. Heres hopeing she has plenty of warmth and food and love where she is now.. Rest in Pease sweet heart... save a place for me xxoo Martha

We have gone backwards in this country since 1980. All our representatives do is cut programs that help veterans, drug addicts, the mentally ill, the ones that need it the most. So, they won't have to raise taxes on the top 1- 10%. Our tax system has never been so uneven as it is today, in the USA. The concentration of wealth in the USA is worse than in Egypt. The working people's pay has actually declined over the past decade while the top 10% income continues to mushroom. When they say everyone needs to share the sacrifice, they mean the working class. Some politician needs to have the backbone to raise the marginal tax rate on the corporations!

(...more) As I was eating my desert, an ambulance arrived. By now mesmerised, I watched as paramedics tried to wake him up but eventually they lifted him up onto a stretcher, into the ambulance and drove away through the streets of Rome. To this day, that event haunts me. I don’t know if he was alive or already dead as I and many others church visitors walked by, or alive while I ate my meal in sight of him or dead by the time I finished my desert and the ambulance drove away. I still feel guilty about all of that and pray that I change - never to assume again that I, or any passerby, will assume that all will be alright for any street-prone man or woman, or me, or you, who collapses on any church steps - or in any street - whatever the weather. Tá mór-bhrón orm i gcuinne an bhfear sin.

(..more) Because I once saw a mid-30'ish young man sprawled out in an awkward lying position on the steps of the Church of Mary Major, in Rome’s warm city, as I entered that sacred church (among other ‘things’, it has 5 aged wood sticks of the original crib of Jesus on display for pilgrims). I assumed the man was a drunk or drugged beggar man, as often seen at church doors and steps, who would wake up eventually and go on about his life, like Grace Farrell might have the night she last lay down her head on St. Brigid’s Church’s steps. >>> I went into the church of Maria Maggiore, spent some time there and emerged to see the man in the same still prone position. I still assumed he was still sleeping his head off and walked on to a side-street restaurant from where, ironically and unintentionally, I could still see the steps of the Church of Maria Maggiore, the prone man on the steps and all the people who, like me, walked past him. As I ate my evening meal, my eyes kept wandering back to the prone man on the church steps and the people walking past him (including priests who had, shortly before, been hearing Confessions in the church from me and others), expecting, in a chuckling sort of way, that he would wake up any moment, dazed as to where or what he was about. (...more)

This is certainly a very sad case - may Grace Farrell be at Rest in Peace, wrapped alone in God’s warming love. >>> It is also a very topical case for us in Ireland now - because the inquest into the death of 30-yr old mother of two, Rachel Peavoy, who froze to death in her own Dublin flat last year, has started in Dublin. We await developments in that. I hope I learn from them too. Why? (More...)

May you rest in peace, Grace.

One word. Sad. Maybe the AOH or one of the Irish societies will help with the funeral and proper Christian burial so she don't end up in a Potter's field.