A father who was left widowed with seven young children has said sharing his story of “brokenness and grief” after losing his wife is helping others.
Bernard Branagan said his beloved wife Zipporah, who died suddenly in April in her 30s, was “the most encouraging person that you ever come across”.
Mr Branagan, from Hilltown in County Down, said that the loss had also brought an outpouring of kindness from all communities in Northern Ireland, from his local Presbyterian church to his GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) club.
It comes as Alliance MLA Nick Mathison submitted questions to the education minister calling for grief education to become a formal part of the school curriculum.
Currently, while individual schools have their own grief counselling schemes, the subject is not part of the curriculum as it now is in England.
‘Good for the boys to see me cry’
Zipporah was mother to Noah, Theo, Teddy, Isaac, Hugo, Ezra and baby Cooper, who was born last year.
Grief is something that Mr Branagan has had to navigate with the couple’s sons.
“Zipporah was the centre of my life and the centre of seven wee boys, and to lose her… to leave this emptiness behind, it leaves us all absolutely broken, and I’m lost,” Mr Branagan told Good Morning Ulster.
“I think she’s given me a strength to help others.”
He said Zipporah was an incredibly caring person, who had dropped out of school in lower sixth to care for her mother who had a neurological disease.
“Our house is surrounded with pictures of her,” he said.
“I cry every night and most mornings. I cry in front of the boys because it’s good for them to see me being emotional. Sometimes, as males, we try to be super strong and we aren’t – we are as weak as everyone else.”
Sharing his story online has helped.
“People have reached out to me and thanked me for sharing my thoughts on grief, and I really want to help people, because she helped everyone,” Mr Branagan said.
He told the programme his whole community has helped him and his family in the days and weeks since.
“I’m Catholic-born and and involved in the GAA, but my local Presbyterian church has been unbelievable towards me and my family.
“In death, people come together and you see the best in people, and I have seen the best in both sides of our community. I really think we live in a special place.
“The local women from the Presbyterian church came with food and stuff for the children. The GAA community has also been amazing.
“I don’t know how I’ll thank people and if I can’t thank everyone I want to help others, and maybe that’ll be my thanks.”
‘I look at my boys and see their mother’
Twenty one weeks on from her death and the family have not got any answers as to the cause of Zipporah’s death, after an inconclusive post-mortem examination.
“I don’t know the reason this happened and I might never know,” her husband said.
“But these boys get me up every morning. We have to get up and fight. I look at my boys and see their mother.
“Part of me died when she died but she gave me something special – seven sons.”
Alliance MLA Nick Mathison has submitted questions to the education minister calling for grief and bereavement to become a formal part of the school curriculum.
“Good grief education can act as a strong protective factor when children later experience bereavement,” Mathison said.
“It is vital that the right support is available for our children – nowhere is this more important than in our schools.”
Charities, like Marie Curie, have called for more bereavement support in schools in the past.
In a statement, a Department for Education spokesperson said that schools have pastoral care policies and structures in place “so that children and young people know who they can contact if they require support, for a range of reasons, including bereavement”.
It added an Education Authority programme Being Well Doing Well is designed to help students with emotional health and wellbeing, and provides bereavement professional learning for teachers.
In the cirriculum, the spokesperson added, there are personal develeopment resources at both a primary and post-primary level “which address grief, loss and bereavement”.
If you have been affected by the issues in this story, help is available at the Action Line.
