SEPARATED by death in recent years, the ashes of a Co Fermanagh man and his Tyrone-born wife were today brought home and buried together.
After getting married, Philip and Lena McCaffrey lived in a number of places, before settling in Cardiff, Wales, where they lived for 38 years.
Lena, who was originally from Garvaghey in Tyrone, passed away at the age of 69 in 2008 and Philip, who grew up in Killaculla, Tempo, died last February. Shortly before his death, Philip told his family he wished to be buried with Lena back home in Fermanagh.
Today, the first anniversary of Philip’s death, his wish came true when the couple’s family brought their ashes home to Tempo.
A Mass was held at the Church of the Immaculate Conception this morning, before Phillip and Lena’s ashes were interred together in the nearby Edenmore Cemetery.
Among those in attendance at the poignant service were the couple’s four daughters, Caroline McCaffrey, Sam Sweet, Kelley Prance and Philippa Woodward. The couple also had six grandchildren: Alana, Maisie, Lily, Ruby, Betsy and Stanley.
Speaking at the service, Monsignor Peter O’Reilly said Philip was the oldest of seven siblings, while Lena was the oldest of eight children.
“Philip died a year ago today and his daughters are doing today what he asked back then, they are bringing him home and with him Lena,” he said.
The priest said it had not been a ‘new wish’ of Philip’s to be buried with Lena.
“For nearly 18 years from the day she died Philip had kept her ashes. He just hadn’t found the right moment or the right place. What he never lost was the conviction that wherever he was going, she was going too.
“And when a man carries that conviction for so many years we are not dealing with just sentiment, we are touching something at the heart of what it means to love somebody else.
“Something at the heart of what the Christian faith dares to believe about what where love ultimately leads.”
Monsignor O’Reilly said Philip and Lena met at a dance, before getting married and leaving Ireland in 1960.
They lived in London, Surrey, Belfast, Cambridge, before settling in Cardiff.
“Five places across six decades, each shaped by Philip’s own vocation in nursing.
“Lena made the home wherever they lived. Initially she had worked with nursery children but when Caroline came along, Lena devoted herself to Philip, the home and the raising of the four of them.
“Philip served the National Health Service, from his first ward to his final post as director of nursing.”
The priest praised the couple’s family for making their final wish come true.
“Philip didn’t want to return to Ireland without Lena because he understood in his bones that just as his love refused an incomplete ending, so also the love of God it is that brings everything to completion.
“So to Caroline, Sam, Kelley and Philippa, what you have done for your parents, the faithfulness, this long and carefully planned journey, this care, the journey that is completed today by your presence and actions here has in itself a kind of theology in it.
“You have showed in action what the love that refuses an incomplete end looks like, by coming here.
“Philip, Lena, the eldest of seven, the eldest of eight, home at last together.”
