I met him because I was too proud to admit I was lost. I had moved to Dublin three weeks earlier, from a small town where every road knew my name, and I was standing outside Tara Street Station in the kind of rain that seems personal. My phone had died, my interview shoes were soaked through, and I was pretending to study a bus timetable I did not understand. A man beside me said, very gently, “You’re either going to Rathmines or you’re about to cry.”
His name was Cian. He had kind eyes, a navy coat with one missing button, and an umbrella that looked like it had survived several bad decisions. I told him I was going to an office near Grand Canal Dock for a second interview. He laughed, not at me, but at the situation, and said, “You’re going in the wrong direction with great confidence.” Then he walked me there under his umbrella, keeping most of the rain on his own shoulder.
I got the job. I also kept his umbrella by accident. I only realised when I was sitting in the lobby afterwards, holding it like some strange trophy. He had scribbled his number on the back of my interview notes before leaving, saying, “In case Dublin tries to confuse you again.” I rang him that evening to apologise, and he said, “Grand. You can return it over coffee.”
For a year, that umbrella became our joke. It came with us to St Stephen’s Green, to late pints in Grogan’s, to chips eaten on the wall near the Liffey when neither of us had much money. Cian had a habit of noticing small things. If a busker changed songs halfway through Grafton Street, he noticed. If I went quiet, he noticed. I had spent most of my life trying to be low-maintenance, trying not to take up too much space. With him, I began to feel there was room for all of me, even the anxious parts, even the messy parts that checked the oven three times and cried at Christmas ads.
Then my father got sick. Properly sick. The kind where every phone call makes your stomach drop. I started travelling home every weekend, and during the week I became a version of myself I did not recognise. I forgot to reply. I cancelled plans. I snapped at Cian over nothing one night outside Pearse Station because he had brought me soup and I was too tired to be grateful. He just stood there holding the paper bag, rain gathering in his hair, and said, “You don’t have to perform being okay for me.”
That should have made me love him better. Instead, it frightened me. Being loved when you are pleasant is easy. Being loved when you are afraid feels like debt. After my father died, I pulled away completely. I told Cian I needed time, which was true, but I said it in a way that sounded like goodbye. He accepted it. That was the worst part. He did not beg. He only said, “I’ll leave the light on, but I won’t stand in the doorway.”
Months passed. Dublin changed seasons without asking me. I went to work, came home, and learned the quiet geography of grief. I would see men in navy coats and feel my chest tighten. I walked past Grogan’s once and crossed the road because I could not bear the thought of our old table being occupied by people who had no idea it had once held my happiness.
The incident that brought me back to him was small. One Friday in November, I was cleaning out the hall press and the umbrella fell
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
