I wasn’t going to go into Christ Church Cathedral… I was just going to walk by, on my way to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But it was raining, and I was warm in my long sleeve shirt, thermal undershirt, and hoodie, but I hadn’t brought my raincoat with me and I didn’t want to get completely soaked. I thought if Ireland rain is anything like Florida rain (we call Gainesville, Rainesville, for a reason) then it’d pass soon and I’d get a break to walk to the other Cathedral.
However. It wound up being so beautiful inside, with such amazing stained glass, that I wound up staying a couple of hours.
I wound up sitting for a little while in one of the chairs, resting my feet and looking around at all the stained glass (I only took pictures of about half of it, yet still feel guilty for how large my photo album is of this place!). It was here that I started thinking, and yes, I feel guilty about this, that I was glad Tim wasn’t with me. He was raised Catholic but was a devout atheist, and whenever we traveled I would always want to go into old churches to see how they were built and what they were like inside. He never wanted to go because he wasn’t religious, and I wanted to go even though I wasn’t religious; he didn’t want to go because he had no feelings about it, and I wanted to go because I respect other people’s feelings about it and feel a great admiration for the craft of the carvings and the stained glass.
Without him here, I didn’t have to justify or explain why I wanted to go. I didn’t have to NOT go because it was easier to not go than to justify why I wanted to go. I could go where I want. I could do what I want. I could sit there and admire the beauty and read about the fires and the ceiling collapse and the one corner that still has the original tiles and I could think about all the generations of people who have prayed or been bored or felt guilty while inside, and wonder what their lives were like.
Then I sort of shoved all that down, because I wanted to travel to Ireland because I wanted to do something I always wanted. I wanted to do something brave. I wanted to live a life I enjoyed. I didn’t want to be glad that I didn’t have to justify my actions to my husband.
The next morning, I cried, and cried, and cried as I was packing up at the B&B. I felt so guilty for having such a good day. I felt terrible for not missing Tim when I had been thinking about him the day before. I felt awful for having a good time and doing new things and moving forward with my life. I felt miserable for being glad, for a moment, that I didn’t have to justify him why I wanted to do something I wanted to do, and instead, that I could just go and do it.
Grief is a roller coaster, y’all. I hate roller coasters. I like moving, I just don’t like being moved.
But all of those emotions, Saturday, were a problem for Sunday me. Saturday Me was going to walk around this gorgeous old cathedral until I felt like it was time to move on, and then I was going to go to a few parks (I went to one right next to the Castle but I want to put all three parks in the same post) and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for dinner but there would probably be food somewhere.
Turned out I was very hungry when I got out of the Cathedral, so I wound up going to this amazing steak place right across the street. I am pretty sure that might have been the best steak I’ve ever had.
But before the steak, there was still a little bit of the Cathedral to get through. The underground.
PHRASING. I was very disappointed to find out this was not, in fact, a crypt-themed gift shop.
However!!!
I can’t believe that I was almost at the end when I came to the mummified cat and rat. If they’d told me that outside, I would have been THROWING money to get in!
Once upon a time a rat ran into the organ to get away from a cat. The cat followed. They were both deprived of oxygen and both died, and both mummified inside the organ until they were found years and years later. Curiosity did, indeed, kill the cat. Or at least the drive to chase things.
If you’d like to look at the rest of my pictures, you can find them here.
Thanks, y’all!