For Dolours

How can I weep for someone I never had the chance to meet and know?  And yet that is what I've done all the day and into the night and early morning now, for you have gone.  You, beautiful and brave woman of our Ireland who fought so hard for us, now are flying with our unforgotten fallen, cut down by life's hard pain and sorrow, into the other realm of memory and legend.

You never bowed down to false men but stood against them with all your might all these long years.  It took its toll on you, the forcefeeding, the weight of truthtelling, all the losses, the marginalization.  You were no auxiliary to anyone.  You were a full veteran of war and no one's mule or mere accomplice.  You stood so strong for so very long, never wavering in your complete devotion to our Ireland.  It had to hurt so much, what you knew inside your heart about your traitors, the ultimate betrayal of denial.  How dare they hide behind their lies and disrespect you and all of us who stood beside you?  How dare they dishonor our land with their falsity and verbal treason?  You stood up to them and we listened.  

I wept all day because I know the pain of not being believed, of being marginalized, betrayed and blackened by those I once believed in.  I know the pain of losing hope and feeling it alone in my room at night--how so few really understand or even want to know the nature of those feelings.  It almost killed me, Dolours, that pain.  And now I fear it's what took you, too, the exhaustion of living with your own private suffering.  It is just too much to ask of anyone to bear such things.  People who haven't been there simply cannot understand.

I will carry your memory in my heart forever, brave Oglach Dolours Price.  To me you are forever unbowed and unbroken, true soldier for our Ireland.  I stand and salute you, courageous woman.  You shall never be forgotten.  Our day will come.