SCHOOLBOY Aodhán Ward was "shattered" by the death of the father that he idolised, mourners at the 15-year-old's funeral heard yesterday.
Aodhán died on Monday at his home near Plumbridge in Co Tyrone, just seven months after businessman Nishi Ward (45) was killed in a quad bike accident on the family farm.
Mr Ward, founder of engineering firm Waste System - one of area's biggest employers and considered a key player in the north's manufacturing sector - was found by Aodhán.
At his funeral last year, the teenager led the cortege in a red tractor driven in front of the hearse and helped carry the coffin.
The pair were "kindred spirits", parish priest Fr Brian Donnelly told mourners gathered at Sacred Heart Church for Requiem Mass yesterday morning.
"Aodhán was everything Nishi could have wished for in a son, and Nishi was everything Aodhan could have wished for in a father," he said.
"They were inseparable and so the grief of loss which Aodhán experienced must have gone beyond what he could have coped with. Aodhán was still a child, not yet formed into the stature of the man he was going to be.
"No-one knows what goes on in another's mind. But had we known of Aodhán's sense of desolation and depth of grief we could have reassured him that brighter days lay ahead.
"We would have reassured him and encouraged him that life has its ups and downs and that days of sorrow pass as all things pass.
"But when you are young you expect answers to come quickly; the impatience of youth can lead to error of thought and action; waiting for an answer or thinking that some things can only be settled with time, these are outside the imaginings of youth.
"Simply put, `you cannot put an old head on young shoulders'. The thoughts of an old man are not those of a young man."
Fr Donnelly said anyone, even adults, "can be overwhelmed by loss and grief" and the Drumragh Integrated College pupil had "all his world turned upside down last November".
"Aodhan was only a lad not even at the threshold of manhood and yet was given an experience of loss and desolation that he should not have known until he was gifted with many more years and with the wisdom that comes with age," he said.
"But life is not fair and death and the experience of grief and loss is no respecter of age."
Aodhán is survived by his mother Jennifer and sisters Sinead, Eimear and Finnuala.
He was buried afterwards in the cemetery adjoining the church.
