This shouldn't happen like this.

Well things are moving on and now I see an end to the seemingly endless task on which I have been working.
I must have become a magnet for hopeless lame ducks in sharp decline.
I saw her standing there holding on to a lamp post. 60 ish slim and drunk.
Times are hard so I stopped. She was going to a late night chemist on the Malahide Rd. but it was closed.The only other place I knew of that would be open was in O'Connell St.
So off we went and she told me of how bad she felt about being drunk.
"I went back to school at 46 and did a masters at UCC, and I never touched alcohol until I was 48, that was the day my husband of 30 years walked out on me".
I kid you not folks she has had a tough life.
I turned off the meter at €20 but she was insistent that I turn it back on. (You can't restart a meter from where you left off)
What do you want to hear ?
How her father a police man walked out on her mother and 3 kids ?
How her mother used to beat them with a stick, she would take the brunt of the attacks to protect the smaller infants. "After the beatings I could push the blood around which was lying under my skin"

After she got her Masters degree.
She worked as a social worker, helping aids victims, directing help for the homeless.

Then one day she was on outreach for vulnerable children, "The girl was not bad, just wild. I told my Superior that I had gained this girls trust and I wanted to go to her on that day.
My Superior told me to go to Cabra on a non urgent case as it turned out. That was the day the 14 year old girl was killed.
They tried to push the blame on to me. Then I really started to drink"

So now she is in emergency accommodation for homeless people and her life is full of woe.

"I always thought if you were a good person and you tried hard to do the best thing you can for yourself and your family, that things would work out fine"