Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Some stories stop you in your tracks. And this week's episode is one of them. On the 5th of December 2023, James O'Connor was making his way towards the summit of Kilimanjaro to celebrate his 48th birthday. And back home, his wife Grace and their three children were looking forward to seeing him once again just days later. Instead, they received the news that every family fears.
Chapter 2: What tragic event occurred during James O'Connor's Kilimanjaro climb?
Just 100 metres from the summit, while watching the sunrise on his birthday, James passed away. He was just 40 years old. Today, Grace joins me to share the story of the man she describes as the love of her life, a devoted husband, an incredible father and someone who brought joy to everyone around him.
This is a conversation about love, loss and the unimaginable reality of having your world turned upside down in an instant. Grace speaks with incredible honesty about the darkest days of her life, the pain of losing James. and the determination that helped her keep moving forward. This is a story of heartbreak, resilience, and the enduring power of love.
If this story resonates with you, please leave a comment and hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow. And as always, this episode is proudly sponsored by ADHD Now, the online clinic transforming ADHD assessment and care across Ireland. If you are seeking an ADHD assessment or support, visit adhdnow.com today. This is a comeback with Grace O'Connor.
Grace, I'm delighted to have you here. You're the first person who's asked before a podcast, is my posture OK?
Chapter 3: How did Grace O'Connor cope with the news of her husband's death?
I said to myself, is my posture OK? Now, I came across you a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. I started watching your videos and I actually said to myself, and I said this to you on the phone. My God, how is she just so upbeat? How is she even anything after what you've been through?
Yeah.
The person was telling me about it. I was out on a hike and she was like, she'd be amazing on your podcast. And I immediately went on your page and I was just in awe of your strength. And I really, really mean that. So how my brain works is straight away, bang, bang, get onto them, do a phone call, get them on the podcast. And here you are.
But Grace, for people who don't know you, can you tell me a bit about yourself, where you grew up and what it was like?
Okay.
So I'm from Limerick. I grew up in an area called Myrath. It was really loads of people, absolutely great childhood, everyone out the front, everyone's front door open kind of a vibe. And I suppose as I was getting older, I had two older sisters as well. My dad left when I was one. He had an affair with my mam's friend, our neighbour, and that was kind of really all I knew, you know, growing up.
So she was parenting the three of us by herself. Absolutely amazing. And that's what we'd done. We moved to an area I didn't call Kennedy Park. And I lived there for a couple of years around, I think I was 15 or 16.
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Chapter 4: What were the challenges Grace faced as a young widow?
And I met my older two kids' dad around that age. He was from Newport and we were just young and in love. And I got pregnant. or young, I was 18 I think when I got pregnant, 19 having him. I moved out to Newport for a while, lived there and history repeated itself.
He actually had an affair with one of my friends and I was then pregnant with my lovely daughter Lily and had my son Christopher at the time.
Oh, I had no idea about that.
Yeah.
Oh, that's very, very triggering.
You know what I have learned, Brenda, is it's funny because when you go up with a narrative of this is what men will do, that's what I believed was going to happen and that's what happened. I mean, I've absolutely no hate towards him. That poor girl has passed away since. Oh, that's so sad. And it was just me and my sisters all ended up in relationships where we'd been cheated on.
I believe my narrative is I went out to the world expecting this to happen. And that's what happened. And I think it's so important to reflect and make sure I didn't want to end up in that situation again. And that that's not true, actually. Not all men are like that.
No, they're definitely not.
And, you know, having a kind of expectation of this isn't going to happen again.
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Chapter 5: How did Grace's children react to their father's passing?
I'm like even thinking again how gracious even speaking to you on the phone a couple of weeks ago and to understand this and learn this now. I can't even believe all you've been through even since back then. Yeah, from a young age. Oh my goodness. Then your early 20s, did you spend them kind of on your own raising the kids or what? What happened?
Yeah, so I was, Lily was three when I met James. So there was a few years. Where did you meet James? In Limerick.
Yeah. So we moved to Limerick. Where's James from? Cork. Where in Cork is he from? I know.
For the listeners. You just wanted me to say.
No, but for the listeners.
I need to know where you met. He, oh God, I should know all this. They moved to Firmoy when they were young. I should have got all this info off his sister. You're fine. His two parents are actually Limerick, which is hilarious. He kept top secret from any of the Limerick lads. I need to know who he supported on the Harling days, Cork or Limerick? Of course Cork, always.
But actually my kids, the house is very divided and his parents were County Limerick. They moved to Cork and that's where James and his other five siblings grew up. There were six of them there. They lived in Firmagh and they had a nightclub in Firmagh. So their siblings never going to be, she's saying it all wrong, but I'll tell you my memory of it, what James told me.
They had a nightclub, they had a bar restaurant, a nightclub underneath and they lived above it. And one of the funny things I remember James saying was a part of kind of the restaurant service is you can get the limo to come pick you up, but they couldn't afford another car. So that was just their car. So sometimes he'd be getting dropped to school rush and he'd be mortified.
So they lived there for a while and then... Moved to Toaster's Cork City and then along the way they got the restaurant, Tony's Bistro. Everybody knows Bistro. And they moved to Whitechurch. So that was then, I think, kind of brought him up to he's maybe 16. Could have been younger, even 15, you know, when they moved to Whitechurch. He lived there and worked in a bistro.
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Chapter 6: What support systems did Grace utilize after her loss?
Some done college, some travelled, but they'd always end up back there. Lived there with his mum and dad and then a couple of years on. So James was the baby of five. When he was 16, his mom got pregnant on Jordan. So there was a big age gap. And poor Jordan, unfortunately, their family has already suffered tragedy. Their mom died when she was 50, when Jordan was only seven, I think.
Oh, that's terrible. So what, would James have been 22? Yeah. I didn't, so I still don't know James.
That is so young for a mother to pass away.
So young and I think having Jordan there at that age, I remember at mine and James' wedding, us looking at photos from when they were younger and we were looking at little Jordan, you know, photo of him and his mam and we were saying, can you imagine? We were both saying, can you imagine what it must have been like for him?
But dad was there, but Shelley, Michelle, one of the sisters, she reared Jordan in. So as long as I know James from the day I know him, Shelley's the mammy of the family. She just is. And I knew that before I even met her. She had decided she was going to do this and I wasn't there through it.
But from the story, she really filled, you know, went into Kathleen's shoes, you know, and kind of took on that role. That massively impacted James's life. Of course, it would have all of them. And then a couple of years on, James struggled with addiction throughout his life. They're a super close family, you know, and I just met one of James's sisters before I came here.
And I'm thinking, you know, how much am I going to share? And I'm very conscious this is James's story, not mine to tell. And she really feels like they're all so proud of how he changed his life. And it's hard for me. I never seen that other side of James. Oh, my God. Like the pictures, his friends have shown me the stories. I'm like, I can't believe that was him.
That's not the man I knew, you know. So then he, you know, was in addiction. He got into recovery. And after that, that's when I met him. He moved to Limerick.
Did he move to Limerick to kind of get away from his old life? Exactly.
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Chapter 7: How did Grace honor James's memory after his death?
That is a great one.
All right. So whatever. Anyways, I'm telling my sisters and one day I'm in the car with one of my sisters and I go into the shop. I leave the phone in the car and she texts James. She texts James going, do you want to go to cinema? Freaking out. I was like, oh my God, what did you do? So of course he's like, yeah, blah, blah, blah.
We go to cinema and afterwards he didn't even try and give me a kiss or anything. So I went up the road fuming. He was like, he told me afterwards, he thought like we were going, he didn't know that I liked him that way, was it as a friend? Yeah. Because I remember him saying one of the other lads, he'd said, oh, I'm going to the cinema with Grace.
And the other guy was like, oh, yeah, I can't go now with you because I've, whatever I do. Yeah, yeah. So we go sit around, I go after her and I'm fuming, I'm like the first, I basically asked him out on a date, like how dare he? The audacity.
And then I go home and he sends me this like essay of a message just saying, I know you probably never would, but is there any chance that you'd ever think about going out on a date with me?
Aww.
And that was so lovely. And in my head, I was thinking we were just on one.
Did he not think you were actually on a date at the cinema? Isn't it crazy how the man's mind and the woman's mind, we're practically married at the cinema. You've probably talked about it. All of that. All in. I have decided you now, James. So come on. We think like this is it now. Thinking about the future. Whereas he's just at the cinema with a friend.
It's crazy what goes on in our heads. Can I tell you something so funny? He'll kill me for this, but I slagged him for years. So afterwards, after we started dating a while, he said, when you said yes to that message, I got down on my hands and knees and thanked God. Aww. Oh, God almighty. So cute. But he denied that he ever taught me that thing afterwards.
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Chapter 8: What lessons did Grace learn about grief and resilience?
I would never have brought another man, you know, around Chris and Lil and We both knew very early on, you know, that we really liked each other. And this was our future was together. So I first introduced him to the kids and Chris loved him. My eldest loved him. Lily was horrible to him. Right. Interesting. You think it might be the boy would be horrible rather than the girl. You know what?
And I think when you think kind of what I said about like dad leaving and all these things and I learned later on that fear comes into it, you know. So James had a bit of work to do with Lily. By God, did he do it. He was so good, you know. And then I got pregnant with James and everything was great. We went and got married. He proposed to me. I can't remember what year.
We went over to Fillamora in Portugal. I love it over there. Absolutely. And I'm allergic to the beach. I'm more of a pool girly. Same. Yeah. And he was like, let's go on a walk. Let's go. And I was like, I'm not standing on the sand now, James. You know, and he was like, come on, come on, come on. Eventually got me down there and I turned around and he was down on one knee. It was so beautiful.
It's like we weren't 16. I remember my mam saying it to me. I obviously had two kids. He had been engaged. We both had been through stuff in life. And I was closed off a bit. I was. I had been hurt. And I remember my mam just saying, like, you're not 16, Grace. There's not meant to be this stuff you see on telly.
You need two good people that are willing to work and that's what makes a healthy relationship. And that really stayed with me, you know, and no matter how much I tested James or tried to push him away, he was just there and showed up. And by God, did I drive him crazy, Brenda, I did. He went from being a single man to a dad of three basically overnight.
And even that with Lily, I mean, he worked so hard to win her over and they were actually the closest. That was James became her person and he broke cycles in my family. Oh, I love that. You know, he broke generation of stuff. Every single day he told Lily, you look beautiful, princess. Every day. Was he still going up and down to work in Cork? This is what makes a good marriage. Yes, he was.
Yeah. Right? Yeah. I will tell you, everyone's like, how did you get on so well? Like all these years later, he would. So you travel up and down to Cork. He would not leave that restaurant. Absolutely loved it. Loved working with his family. Loved being his own boss. So he would commute and then every Thursday night he would stay in Cork in his sister Katrina's house. Break up the week. Yeah.
And that would kind of be fun night at home. So dad's gone. The older two were allowed to keep their phone in their rooms. The youngest is in the bed with me. We're watching telly. We're allowed to stay up a bit later. Because he was real strict with routine and stuff. And that's what our Thursday nights would look like.
And then very rarely in the winter, say, the drives would get a bit long for him. And he might say, do you mind if I stay another night? But that wouldn't happen often. And he'd fly up and down the road. He'd be rushing home to us. He loved in the summer, the evenings were bright. He'd be rushing home to get out front and play soccer with the kids. doing all barbecue.
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