Louise O’Neill (far right) with Will Alshire, Michelle O’Neill, Michael O’Neill and Marie O’Neill on Carrauntoohil. Photograph: Courtesy of Louise O'Neill View image in fullscreen Louise O’Neill (far right) with Will Alshire, Michelle O’Neill, Michael O’Neill and Marie O’Neill on Carrauntoohil. Photograph: Courtesy of Louise O'Neill A moment that changed me Life and style A moment that changed me: My mother fell off a mountain – and my life began again A bad breakup had made me afraid I would be mired in anger for ever. But on that family hike, in our fear and horror as we awaited the air ambulance, my old hurts took on a different hue
Prefer the Guardian on Google T o steal a well-known line, 2023 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. My annus horribilis began when a long-term relationship broke up in January, only six months after we had bought our first home together. I was about to turn 38 and the future I thought was mine – marriage, children – all fell apart. What followed was blow after blow: my sister announced her engagement, I was told by a fertility doctor that I was “not a suitable candidate” for egg freezing, and I soon began having multiple panic attacks a day.
Ordinarily, my work would have been my solace; when I wrote, it was as if time was suspended. But now, my words abandoned me. They would not come, no matter how much I tried. So, in April, I decided to take the rest of the year off to recover. As I was self-employed, this was not a choice I made lightly – but my heart was broken and so too, it seemed, was my brain.
As befitting a millennial woman who read Eat Pray Love at a formative age, I attempted to recover using every kind of therapy imaginable. Unfortunately, even after a five-week trip to Thailand for a yoga and wellness retreat, I didn’t feel “healed”. I still felt resentful and sad, and I became afraid that I would be mired in my anger for the rest of my life.
That September, my father turned 63. He didn’t want presents; he wanted the whole family – my parents, me, my sister and her now husband – to climb Carrauntoohil, the highest mountain in Ireland, together.
It was a beautiful morning, but I was tired. The insomnia that had plagued me as a teenager had returned, making every day feel like an endurance test. I threw myself into the back seat of my parents’ car, pretending to sleep until we got to County Kerry. I wanted to be left alone with my misery, ruminating on how badly I had been treated, how I was the greatest victim who had ever lived.
It was my first time climbing Carrauntoohil. We ascended through the Devil’s Ladder, a steep, rocky gully with loose stones and scree; you couldn’t lose focus, even for a second. At the summit, we ate our sandwiches and took photos at the wooden cross before the descent. I was in a better mood – annoyingly, my parents were right that getting outside would help. We were close to the end, and so close to safety, when I heard a scream. I turned to see my mother falling – 20ft? 30ft? 50ft? I couldn’t tell. Her body picked up speed until she was a blur of limbs and she crashed into a stone boulder with a sickening crack.
Well, I thought. My year is about to get a lot worse .
I scrambled to reach her, screaming her name, my sister running behind me. My father was trying to get to her, too. His face was pale and I knew he thought the same as me, that she was dead. No one could have survived a fall like that.
View image in ful…