The following article, written by Michael Quinn an ACI member, was recently published in the Irish Examiner. It touchingly describes his experience of losing his 23-year-old daughter Veronica.
Based in Newry but originally from Cork, Michael and his wife Terri founded the parent-support charity The Family Caring Trust. The Family Caring Trust provides quality parenting resources to families and community groups in Ireland and the UK for almost 30 years now. In 2002 Terri and Michael received the Bethany Family Institute Award for their innovation in introducing a pro-active response to family relationship education. Over half a million parents have experienced at least one of the low-cost community-based courses and they have been translated into 19 languages.
Michael Quinn’s new book An Armagh Childhood is available on Amazon.com. All proceeds from the book will go to Family Caring Trust.
What an incredibly brave and moving account of a father’s and a family’s love for a daughter and what a beautiful legacy Veronica has left. Thank you, Michael, for sharing this and I am sure it will help others who have to journey that nightmare road of bereavement. I am so pleased to see your sister Brenda’s name here as she babysat me in Armagh a very, very long time ago! My dad, Charlie O’Neill, also played flute and piano with the Quinn family on Sunday afternoons in their house in Ogle Street. A very gifted family and it is wonderful to read how those family bonds have helped create such supportive structures for times such as these. That and the gift of the Holy Spirit which permeates every word of this account. Incredibly moving. Thank you again. Dia leat agus
libh. Mary O Vallely
Thank you so much for sharing your journey through grief Michael. It’s a privilege to read of your love and your pain – your agony. Veronica was obviously quite a girl, a girl who truly lived her short life.I suspect that all of your family are truly alive. I thought the names Michael & Terri Quinn were familiar, but it took a while till I remembered the wonderful courses I availed of while I was working with teenagers and then when I was a parent of teenagers! It’s so long ago now, I’ve forgotten the titles, but there was sound, good sense in those books and we all appreciated them.Thank you.