Saoirse Kerr

Intro It's the unexpected things. It always is, isn't it? "All we can do is move forward." It's a lesson your mom taught you after your grandmother died. "Time doesn't stop when we grieve, but we can find purpose through the grief." So... that was what you did when mom was diagnosed with cancer while you were in college. You buckled down, got your grades up and decided on law school. Law school felt liberating, you loved it. The fellow students were smart and worth talking to and it was intellectually challenging. You were happy and fulfilled and then... Mom took a turn for the worse and it hit you totally out of the blue, she made it sound like things were fine and she had this great plan for the future and then... You spent a week with your family making arrangements for the things, the memorial... and back to law school to finish out your first year. A last mock trial, and then exams. "All we can do is move forward." And that forward momentum saved you. Through exams and to a summer program at Oxford. And that was when you had time to breathe. On long walks through the English countryside, day trips to random cities. Just hours on your own, exploring in peace... and then you ran into a stunning Irish PhD student. Or to be more accurate you ran into Saoirse, a delightful woman with a mind that runs a mile a minute, a heart of gold, and a smile that could charm the most cynical person alive. And you just fell into a conversation with this random person about everything. "Aye," Saoirse nodded sagely. "it's true. Time doesn't stop for our grief and you can't wallow in grief forever, but you know what else is true." You shook your head. "Grief doesn't just process itself with time." You paused for a moment because she was right, so right. "I'm not going to pretend that I get it, just because the Irish are the best in the world at grief... but we are. You need to talk about it. Meet me and some of my friends back at the pub tonight, we'll talk properly."