It all comes back to the moment when she shared her greatest fear, of being forgotten” “The problem with me is that I will talk to anyone all day about Sarah. For David, the urge to tell anyone and everyone about his daughter is what has carried him through the darkest hours. There are many ways to deal with such bereavement. Sarah was mature beyond her years, right down to the finest details of her funeral which was a celebration of her life, reflected in the bright colours requested to be worn, the personal choice of songs, token seeds available as a keepsake and even the ice cream van parked outside St Michael’s church. She never complained right to the end,” he states. “She used to come home here battered and bruised from rugby. I said to her: ‘now, is the time to show how stubborn you are’.” “When she got sick, I realised exactly how she needed to be to deal with the cancer. The second row had made it her mission to give her all to the trials for the Leinster U-18s until her illness took that away too. It wasn’t just off the pitch where Sarah excelled. She helped with the minis on a Sunday morning and, in Transition Year, she spent her work experience volunteering for Leinster Rugby Community Officer Barney Hynes. Sarah embraced the ‘Give It A Try’ programme and pushed others to come down to the club. She loved it in a way she had not loved any other sport,” says David. “Straight away, she felt so included in the club and saw how everyone was made to feel included. We never kept anything from Sarah and she never kept anything from the boys.”Īt 15, she acted on a suspicion that rugby was the game for her, going down to the Gorey club one night. “We understood it was the best way to tell the boys. You were dealing with what was coming, the emotions of the boys and your own emotions. “Even thinking of it there now, the emotion in the room that evening,” he recalls. It was like she was telling Majella and me as well, waking us all up to reality. “Sarah sat everyone downstairs in the front room and was matter-of-fact about it. She didn’t want anyone else telling Conor (then 13), Daithi (11), Charlie (9) and Jack (6). “For instance, when she found out the cancer had spread to her brain, she had to come home to break it to our boys herself. “From the first to last days of her illness, Sarah had her own way of dealing with it,” adds David. That is why we talk so openly and easily about her.”Īnd there is a lot to talk about, from the straight-A student at Gorey Community School with her mind made up on medicine to the late love of rugby which sustained her through punishing treatment. From there, Majella and myself promised we would never let that happen. Even as a 17-year-old, she didn’t just want to be known as ‘that girl who died of cancer’. But, I am afraid of being forgotten about,” she told them. One night, in the middle of the treatment, David and mum Majella were called into the bedroom where Sarah revealed her greatest fear. “For us, we are used to telling Sarah’s story. “You would want to be made of stone for it not to affect you,” he says. Now, more than two years since ‘the Gorey girl’ took leave of this place in July 2019, her parents David and Majella look back on the life of a treasure they held onto for as long as he could. How Sarah, just 17, carried herself through the terrifying ordeal of the diagnosis all the way to her final exhale spoke to her wilful, stubborn nature. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, an example of how strength can triumph over the cruelty of a rare and unconquerable disease. Sarah Robinson was so much more than the vessel through which an aggressive osteosarcoma cancer travelled in just 11 months. They say it is a never-ending emptiness that can, sometimes, be filled in with the recall of time shared, memories made and a legacy of light and goodness. There is no greater pain than that of losing a child.