Last night I attended this event for the second time – it’s held annually as part of the Dublin Pride Festival. Last year there were only half a dozen people there and it was very informal – we just sat around and chatted, sometimes about the people we’d lost, sometimes not. (The picture on the poster for this year’s event, above, is actually my hands holding my candle at last year’s ceremony – the photographer showed it to me as soon as he’d taken it, and that’s exactly how it came out, no photoshopping.)

This year there were about twenty people and it was a bit more structured. Candles were lit around a wreath where some people had placed pictures of their loved ones. Candles were passed among the group too – some in holders and some, like mine, allowed to drip molten wax over fingers; by the end of the ceremony my candle was almost burnt out, but had a long stalactite of wax drippings hanging beneath the base :o)

Several people came to the front to speak about their departed loved ones. One woman sang a song, another played a piece of accordion music. Everyone’s stories were sad, but the most heart-wrenching was the organiser, P., who lost his 17-year-old son to suicide just five weeks ago. I could feel a silent current of sympathy and love being extended by everyone to everyone else, and my heart went out to each one of them.

One of the songs P. played for his son was Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters, and it brought tears to my eyes because that was one of Jay’s songs, too. After his funeral I listened to that song over and over the whole day. If I could have picked a song to play for Jay, that would probably have been it. At the end of the ceremony I went to P. and hugged him, and told him that song was meaningful to me, too.

Afterwards, we all repaired to a nearby hotel for a quiet drink. I sat with P. and T., the man I’d been standing beside at the ceremony. We spoke about grieving, and about how hard it is that even when you’ve experienced bereavement yourself, there is nothing you can say to ease someone else’s pain. But I think the people who’ve had a similar experience are the only people who can empathise, and you can feel that empathy even when there are no words.

There’s a unique bond created when you share something like this with strangers, skipping all the social niceties. I’ll probably meet these people again at other Festival events this week, and I know that even if we never mention the subject again, we’ll feel that bond and know we have something in common.