Fr Joe Donnelly, O.Carm

My uncle Joe died on Boxing Day. A few weeks beforehand I saw something on TV about screaming as therapy, and thought that that might be good for me.

The next day we drove up from Glasgow to Inverness. Clouds and rain, the usual. I stopped our car on Rannoch Moor and scrambled to the top of a small hill by the roadside. Anneli stayed put. There was no one for miles around, just rain and hills and small lochs. Lochans. Lochánnan. I don't know.

I looked out over it all, and opened and closed my mouth several times. Nothing happened: no sound. I was afraid of what it might lead to. I might have become inconsolable, and unable to drive.

So I picked my way back to the roadside and we continued on our journey, fearful, uncommunicative, not changed at all.

On Wednesday in Carfin I helped carry his coffin, a scream inside that I can't let out until the next time I'm in the middle of nowhere with nothing to be or do.

No idea when that'll be. I should probably make time for it.