HE struggled to get the words out – a young teenage friend of Erin Gallagher stood bravely before the congregation at her funeral Mass yesterday to say goodbye with a poem.
It was a minute filled with tears and emotion.
But it brought a spontaneous round of applause from the congregation including Erin’s brave mother Lorraine.
Erin, 13, died by suicide at her home in Ballybofey on Saturday. She had been a victim of bullying.
Her last tragic words on the ask.fm website last Friday contained a threat that she would take her own life. Sadly 24 hours later she did, tormented to death by bullies.
But her friends want other words for her to be remembered by; and several of them have contacted Donegal Daily since the funeral asking that the words read out by the young man at St Mary’s Church in Stranorlar be carried here.
The poem is a prayer called When God Loves Little Children.
When God calls little children to dwell with Him above,
We mortals sometimes question the wisdom of His love.
For no heartache compares with the death of one small child Who does so much to make our world seem wonderful and mild.
Perhaps God tires of calling the aged to His fold
So He picks a little rosebud before it can grow old.
God knows how much we need them, so He takes but a few
To make the land of heaven more beautiful to view.
Believing this is difficult, still, somehow we must try,
The saddest word mankind knows will always be “goodbye.”
So when a little child departs, we who are left behind
Must realize God loves children… Angels are hard to find.
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