Shane , it is 2.40 a.m., this is a most unusual time for me to be awake and yet quite apt for the night owl in you. Again I woke up and thought about you my lovely, funny big brother.

In the last 3 or so years of your life you weren’t really ,well ‘you’.

I remember feeling pretty constantly on the edge and worried about you most of the time, fleeting between loving you so fiercely that my heart felt like it might shatter to being so very angry with you for being unable to stop the thing that would eventually take you away from us. I couldn’t understand how you could continue to drink when you had been told it would kill you and yet you thought you were invincible and probably that it wouldn’t catch up with you even in the last two weeks of your life when you said you didn’t feel like you were dying. Madds , I didn’t understand your addiction would be so much stronger and powerful than your love for us . Spending time with you in those few years was so precious, even those times when I knew you had been drinking but promised me you hadn’t and I would leave feeling shit that I’d doubted you but knowing my thoughts were right, and I didn’t know how to help without you wanting to help yourself. Did it stop me drinking?? No of course not, what a massive hypocrite I am eh ?! I question my sobriety on a daily basis now, maybe that’s my conscience and your memory keeping me in check.

And so next May 2nd 2022 it will be 4 years since you died, I have grieved for you much longer than this. To me you will be forever 46. Keep dancing to Groove Armada (I will) and loving Kylie (she would have loved you too)

I love you so much Madds, thank you for all the years of happiness and laughing till our bellies hurt and for being my big brother.

Your Sis, Elise aka ‘Dog ‘ead ‘

X

Shane

A loving and determined boy, who turned into a loving and determined man. A man who was always right – or at least thought he was!

He loved his family, his Nan and Grandad in particular, spending a great deal of his childhood with them, along with his sister, Elise, and his cousins, Simon and Emmakate. He had a very special bond with Elise, sharing crazy sibling jokes that nobody else would ‘get’. Their love knew no bounds. Estranged from his Auntie Je, they reconnected years later, and resumed their bonkers, crazy relationship.

Shane was a talented young man and had his own conservation and design business. He loved his music, and he loved to dance. Cooking was another passion of his, as was drinking red wine, as he was cooking, sometimes watching a film. He loved fashion (how many pairs of trainers did that boy have? ), and his quirky hairstyles were legendary. His Facebook profile states that he was ‘a designer with silly hair.’

I miss him more than anybody could ever know. Him telling me he loved me, calling me “Ma”, ruffling my hair, giving me massive bear hugs – and his laugh, so much like his Uncle Dave’s.