SNIPPET: "It's different when a parent dies. It's natural progression. You know that some day it will happen. You grieve. Then you carry on. But a sibling is different You are woven from the same fabric, inextricably bound, your lives are intertwined. Siblings are part of each other. You carry this always... I have no premonitions of trouble when the phone rings. I'm at the sink, peeling potatoes and half-listening to the Gay Byrne Show. From my big picture window I have an untrammelled view of Knocknarea, fabled mountain grave of the mighty warrior Queen Maeve. The insistent cricket chirp of the phone demands an answer. I wipe my wet hands on my apron and lift the receiver.... A sob answers (my hello). I hear more crying in the background. Uneasiness takes hold. 'Hello.' I hear my voice, so buoyant a few seconds ago, now sharp with fear. My sister doesn't give her name. 'Liam is dead,' she sobs. Like that. Bald. Final. Liam is dead. 'He fell ill at work....' I notice disgustedly that the telephone table badly needs dusting, the umbrella plant on the worn mat has to be watered. Already the edges of the leaves are yellowing... Through the glass panel of the door I see the blurred purple of the rhododendron. My mother gave it to me as a slip when I moved here. Mother... I sob now. Mother has been dead for over a decade but I still miss her. But Liam? He was alive a week ago. He was here. He danced and sang and got mouldy at our nephew's wedding, the first time that all of us siblings had been together at one time in 30 years... Thank God for the foresight and determination of the business community of Sligo, for building the airport at Strandhill, I think, as the hostess settles me in my seat...Now I know that I will be at my late brother's home in London in a few hours... Beneath me lies legend-soaked Sligo, so beloved of Yeats ... There lies distinctive Benbulben where Finn tracked down his unfaithful wife Grainne and her lover Diarmuid. All great heroes of greater times. 'Liam,' I whisper, 'are you really dead?' Sligo, spread under us a few moments ago rounded and mounded like a voluptuous woman ... is now obscured by clouds. I close my eyes. Is this what death is? I muse. Are people who die still here, out there somewhere but veiled from our sight? Memories of Liam flood over me... I'm eight and Liam is ten. I follow him around like a lapdog. He tolerates me. He rarely gets angry with me, but once he came close to walloping me. I came across himself and his friends smoking turf mould rolled up in newspapers. I insisted on having a go. I was so violently ill that it didn't take Mammy long to get at the reason. We were both punished, but Liam more severely than I. After all, he was a boy and the elder. I tried to make it up to him later by stealing real cigarettes out of Daddy's pocket. Tears fill my eyes. Now we are on our way home, swaying on top of the hay cart, drowsy after a long day working at the hay. One of the farmhands started rough play... He pushed Liam a bit too playfully and off my brother toppled into the dusty road. He lay there dazed, knees grazed and bleeding from the fall on the rough stones. I looked at my brother, hurt and bleeding in the dusty road. I looked at the grinning face of the stupid lout who pushed him. I flew at him, kicking and scratching. He sat on top of the hay grinning foolishly, not daring to hit back. He couldn't hit a girl. Not the Master's daughter anyway. With a final vicious spurt I kicked him as hard as I could... He toppled over the side of the cart. 'Don't ever hurt my brother again,' I screamed. I again lapse into reverie, recalling the alter wine... All the boys were altar boys at a certain stage. I often heard Liam talking about the way they drank the altar wine when the priest's back was turned. Like smoking the turf mould, I had to do it. If Liam did, then I could. But there was a snag. Girls weren't allowed to serve on the altar. Girls weren't allowed inside the altar rails.... But I was sly. Girls might not be allowed to serve, but girls had to tidy up and clean the sacristy. The wine was locked away. But Daddy had the keys, hadn't he? Daddy was the Schoolmaster and he had the keys to everything.... When the coast was clear, I made my move. Daddy was correcting copies in the study. Mammy was out feeding the hens. I pulled a chair over to the mantelpiece and climbed up to get the keys. They were kept hanging on a hook to the right of the Sacred Heart picture....I kept my eyes averted from the heart on fire with love for us.... A moment of panic almost wiped out my quest for the wine when my eye fell on the leather strap that shared the hook with the keys. If Daddy found out what I'd done, I knew I'd feel the sting of that strap. I snatched the key and raced around the house to where Liam was waiting by the rhododendron. We flew with bare feet through the quiet churchyard, up the cool aisle and into the sacristy... The first greedy gulp I took of the wine was disappointing... Now I swallowed the wine, but this time it wasn't so repulsive. When you were thirsty , you drank a mug of water or sometimes lovely buttermilk all at one go. You didn't sip. So we drank as we would any other drink. All in one go. I sat on the floor, propped against the wall. The priest's vestments hanging on the back of the door swayed gently. I turned to Liam. 'Is the window open?' I asked... He giggled. 'You said, 'Ish the windy open?' Indeed this sounded very funny and I giggled, a giggle that turned into hiccups. Now everything seemed to be moving, the walls, the furniture, and even the floor. I saw a pair of black shoes appear in the open door, but for the life of me I couldn't make my head look up.... We're circling over London now. I feel a surge of hatred for this sprawling city... It took you, Liam, going quietly home to you family to rest. You died in an uncaring city alone among millions. No amount of kicking or scratching will help you this time. You won't rise out of the dust laughing and bleeding at the same time. Your body is being prepared for burial somewhere down there. Where is your spirit? ... We were rivals at school, equal in intelligence. Every year the priest came to examine us in religious knowledge. Every year you and I tied for first place.... I bet by now you know the truth about that religious exam.... I did cheat. I often meant to tell you, but somehow never did... You were so full of fun. Remember when you took money from three different fellows to fix me to go to the pictures with them knowing very well that Daddy never allowed us to go to the pictures anyway. And I used to be so proud to be seen with you when you came home from College. You had lovely curls and I had wispy hair. I was so jealous of your green eyes... Remember the agony of going to the rare few dances during the Summer holidays? We badly wanted to go, but we had to endure Daddy driving us there and standing at the bottom of the hall reading until the dance was over. Then College was over, our family drifted in various careers and marriages... 'Liam, do you remember?'" -- Excerpts, Dympna McNamara, "Leitrim Guardian" yearly magazine 1996.