Fair City icon Jim Bartley recently opened up about the death of his son, Emmet, in 1987.
The actor spoke of the pain and grief he felt when he lost his son, and how people would cross the road when they saw him, as they didn’t know what to say.
Jim’s son Emmet died of an asthma attack in 1987. The Dubliner currently lives with his wife, Helen Cahill, and has a daughter, Eva, who also became an actor.
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Speaking to The Irish Independent, Jim spoke candidly about the devastating loss of his eldest son, who was just 8 years old when he passed away.
Chatting about Emmet, Jim proudly says,
“Emmet was soft. He was very gentle. It wasn’t that he was inhibited in any way but he had a great sort of mind. I saw him one day and he was working on Lego and he had practically built a little bungalow and he was only seven.
“It was amazing the sort of imagination and the vision he had of being able to put those into a little bungalow and it was nearly perfect. He played football, he played rugby.”
Jim went on to discuss the death of his son and how horrific it was for him and his family.
“I’ll never forget it. You will never forget it. I wrote a little poem about him, about missing him. You go through quite a number of years before you learn to cope.
“Grief is like the tide. It will come in, and you can’t stop it coming in, and then it will go out. And like I said to one counsellor, you don’t have to stay in that grief, you can bring it with you.
“But it’s inside you so you can’t leave it behind. You let it come with you and then you let it out when it wants to go out and then you let it in.”
At the time of Emmet’s death, his sister, Eva was just 7 years old.
Jim recounts a moment where Eva was overwhelmed by the grief of losing her brother.
“I remember a few months later she was playing with her pals, up where she and Emmet had their room. One of the girls came down and said ‘Jim, Eva’s crying upstairs’. And I said tell her to come down.
“So she came down and I put her up on my knee and we cried. The two of us cried. We have all cried. And she was finished crying and then I said go on upstairs and she started playing, but she needed that time, we both needed that time.”
Jim also remembers how some people reacted when they heard the news of Emmet’s untimely passing.
“The death of a child is the worst. I know our parents die and our siblings die but what you feel for a child is immeasurable really. I remember at the time people used to walk to the other side of the road because they didn’t want to meet me face to face because they didn’t know what to say.”
When put in that position, Jim offers some advice for people who want to comfort grieving parents but don’t know how.
“Always just go up and say ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ Some people mightn’t want to talk about it and that’s OK. If people do want to talk about it just listen for a while.
“Like I’m talking to you now. I can talk about it. And it’s very good for me to talk about it. And it’s very good that other people can read it and take it on board.”
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