MEL McMahon, the Lurgan-born poet, has in his collection Out of Breath a very poignant piece called At My Parents' Graveside. The last lines read: "No prayers, no tears, no surge of grief can uncoffin soil or animate their bones."
There is a finality to death. Life ends. The yearn to touch, to hold, to embrace is no longer. Those left behind must wait, as the late Cardinal Basil Hume said, for that time when "grief will yield to peace".
The Pain of a Brother's Loss is a book written by Newry businessman and honorary consul of Poland, Jerome Mullen, about his brother, Monsignor Kevin Mullen, a Vatican diplomat who tragically and prematurely died aged 44, nearly 40 years ago, in Havana, Cuba.
The narrative outlines the dazzling career of a priest in the fast lane of Vatican diplomacy and indeed international politics. Ultimately, the book is also about bringing closure to the Mullen family - the moment when their grief yields to peace.
In the decades after Kevin's untimely death, his siblings had many unanswered questions about the nature of his death. It led them to believe that they had not been told the whole truth about the circumstances.
They were further anguished by the confusion in official communication with Church authorities and by unfounded rumours.
The institution of the Catholic Church is calamitous in its communications. There is often a substantial conflict between the compassion of the Gospel message and the mechanisms of officialdom and hierarchy.
Kevin Mullen was born in Mountnugent, Co Cavan in 1939. Like many Irish villages, it's fairly nondescript, a place more to drive through than drive to. Kevin was born to Joe and Kitty Mullen. He was one of six siblings. Their upbringing was happy, normal and uneventful.
He was a bright pupil and excelled at school. Away from books, he was also a keen sportsman who played for the 1957 Cavan Minors along with the future Cardinal and Archbishop of Armagh, Sean Brady. He was very much looked up to by his younger siblings.
Jerome Mullen outlines in detail the stellar rise of of his brother; Kevin sailed through his studies with a first class honours in scholastic philosophy followed by a doctorate in canon law.
One thing was certain - Kevin Mullen was not bound for the mundane daily work of a parish priest in rural Ireland. Soon he was working on behalf of the Holy See, one of the most influential diplomatic corps in the world.
Kevin's career took him to what the writer Peter Makem described as the "white heat areas of serious international conflict".
First he served in Bangkok before being transferred from Thailand to Syria during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. From there he went to Argentina where the military junta had replaced the democratic government. Here, Kevin lived on the edge, working with families of that country's 'Disappeared' and documenting their stories as evidence.
Jerome's book is highly personal and moving. His pain in losing his beloved brother is in plain sight. Grief takes no linear path and this book is nearly 40 years in the making. It truly is a labour of love and loss.
This short biography also gives a rare glimpse - not often visible to most Catholics and others - into the life of a Vatican diplomat. Kevin's last posting was Cuba and it is there he died in September 1983.
The book contains contributions from people who knew Kevin including Cardinal Sean Brady, Bishop Michael Smith, author David Cox and Ambassador Justin Harman.
Jerome has painstakingly amassed details and conversations with former colleagues and staff. What comes across is that Monsignor Kevin Mullen was as much loved as he was brave. Had his life not been cut short, who knows where this talented priest would have ended up?
Perhaps it's best to lay Kevin Mullen to rest with some of his own words: "We can never defend the dignity of the human person by trampling on it first. That the end does not justify the means is a moral principle. There is no way around it if we wish to be distinguished from the savage."
