Loneliness. A crushing weight I can’t set down. Grief.
Day two and a half – Oughtmama, in the Burren hills → Ballyvaughan
Distance: 6 mi detour from Kinvara route
Route Notes:A short, steep detour into the Burren hills to the ancient monastic site of Oughtmama. Remote and wind-scoured, the site feels timeless.
Location Reflection:Oughtmama
The ruins appeared without warning—three roofless churches, their walls dark with rain. I passed a handful of thatched cottages on the climb up, smoke drifting from their chimneys. Inside, it was quiet enough to hear my own breath. I touched the cold stone and felt something shift, like memory pushing to the surface.
Journal:
I moved between the churches, boots slipping on wet grass, until I saw it—a little way off the path, near the low stone wall that marked the site’s edge. A roadside memorial. A small wooden cross, white paint flaking, plastic flowers brittle with age. A photo tucked into the weeds—blurry from rain but still visible. A boy. Maybe sixteen. Smiling like the world hadn’t touched him yet.
I knelt. Didn’t mean to. Just… folded.
I didn’t know him. But I know what it is to leave someone behind.
Sarah.
God, Sarah.
She ran toward the danger. Because that’s who she was. Because she believed in the job. In honorable duty.
And I let her. I let her believe I was worth dying for.
Joshua keeps telling me it wasn’t my fault. That I didn’t throw that bomb.
But I opened the damn door. I brought all of it to our home. To her. Tohim.
I see:
Second church. Altar stone split clean in two, the crack running through its center like a wound. I laid my hand on it and felt… grief. Overwhelming grief.
I am the stone.
I remember:
Sarah standing post outside our house, tapping her coffee mug with one gloved finger, grinning like she had a secret. “You owe me a steak dinner, boss,” she said.
I told her I’d make it two. Filet mignon.
Never got the chance.
Rage. Guilt. Like I’ve been walking for hours with a blade in my chest and only now noticed the blood.
Maybe the road will bleed it out of me.
I feel:
Lost. Who am I without him?
Maybe without Josh, thereisno Colin.
Maybe that’s OK.
Day Three – Ballyvaughan to Corofin
