The Girl Who Came Home

Life is fragile Grace – it is no more than a petal of cherry blossom; thriving and in full bloom one minute and blown to the ground by a sudden gust of wind the next. We shouldn’t take our life for granted and we should do whatever we can to make ourselves happy.

Now you look here. All your father ever dreamed of for you was to do something you loved in life. He didn't care about fancy qualifications or fancy clothes or cars, just that you were both happy and fulfilled. He was so excited about your dreams for a career.

Never leave yourself open to regret Grace. We can only make a decision when we know the choices we are faced with. If we shy away, turn our backs and hide, we will simply never know. And that is when you end up old and wondering and regretting. Live a life of hope. Don’t live a life of regret.

you can always find a reason to begin again, whatever life has in store for you.

The girl who had left Ireland was gone to the bottom of the ocean with the rest of them.

I suppose people move on, history moves on, and there will, sadly, always be something more terrible waiting around the corner.

On an unknown path, every foot is slow.’ Take your time,

Life is fragile, she heard Maggie saying, we never know what’s waiting around the corner.

On an unknown path, every foot is slow.’ Take your time, Grace. Take one step at a time.

here now; that it was this almost insignificant old lady who, as

And as the smart ship grew In stature, grace, and hue In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too. —THOMAS HARDY, FROM “THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN”(LINES ON THE LOSS OF TITANIC), 1912

On an unknown path, every foot is slow.’ Take your time, Grace. Take one step

As the spring months gave way to summer and then the first leaves of autumn started to fall from the trees by the lakeside, Séamus resolved to sell his da’s house and their small plot of land and travel to England with the money to work in the cotton mills. At least there he would have no reminders of the love he had known and lost. At least there he might stand a chance of putting Maggie Murphy and the horrors of Titanic from his mind. Fate had decided his path in life, and he now had to walk that path, wherever it might lead him.

merrymaking. Yes, Katie would enjoy America, Frances thought as she put on her coat and her hat; in fact, America would enjoy Katie. She left her apartment block and, crossing the road, walked the short distance to the Ninth Avenue Elevated line at South Ferry. Although the elevated line took longer, she preferred not to take the subway system, being slightly claustrophobic. The idea of speeding along in a small underground train made her feel dizzy, so she preferred to travel aboveground by the El for her day of work as a domestic at the Walker-Browns’ residence. As she took her familiar journey north that morning, along Greenwich Street and Battery Place to Gansevoort Street in lower Manhattan and on to Ninth Avenue

spend the day cleaning the houses of those businessmen,

Grace loved the wildness of the wind, the way it whispered through the barley fields and sent ripples rushing along the rivers and lakes, and the clouds hurtling across the sky. To a girl who had spent her childhood outdoors, the wind brought a feeling of reckless freedom, reminding her that she was alive, feeding her soul with a new energy.

On an unknown path, every foot is slow.

Never leave yourself open to regret, Grace. We can only make a decision when we know the choices we are faced with. If we shy away, turn our backs and hide, we will simply never know. And that is when you end up old and wondering and regretting. Live a life of hope. Don’t live a life of regret.

Life is fragile, Grace—it is no more than a petal of cherry blossom: thriving and in full bloom one minute and blown to the ground by a sudden gust of wind the next. We shouldn’t take our life for granted, and we should do whatever we can to make ourselves happy.

Her father had once told her that water has a memory; that every rock, every stone, every grain of muddy sediment leaves something of a fingerprint in the water that flows over it. Grace liked this idea, imagining the water of the great lakes and oceans of the world to echo with the memories of the places, people, and events it had passed on its journey.

We shouldn’t take our life for granted, and we should do whatever we can to make ourselves happy.

Life is fragile Grace – it is no more than a petal of cherry blossom; thriving and in full bloom one minute and blown to the ground by a sudden gust of wind the next. We shouldn’t take our life for granted and we should do whatever we can to make ourselves happy.’ She

way through the crowd that had gathered on

If something’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing properly, even if it is only offering a biscuit with a cup of tea.

It wasn’t worth agonizing over or wishing for things to be different or declaring that life was cruel in its playing out; that was just how it was, and how it would always be.