Stephanie Rainey from Glanmire penned Please Don’t Go, and the words and inspiring video – which shows friends of Stephanie lay bare their grief has attracted much attention on-line.
Stephanie lost her nephew, who was just shy of one-years-old ten years ago and this tragedy changed her life forever.
“I can still remember how it felt and I know there are so many other people who have gone through the same thing in one form or another,” she said.
It was years later while visiting someone in hospital that Stephanie was struck by empathy for the people around her in the various wards.
Speaking to ehospice.com Stephanie said, “It brought back the pain of what I had gone through and I went home and wrote the song. It came so easily to me.”
Stephanie wanted to create a music video to reflect the meaning behind the song, with the aim of helping people struggling with loss. She enlisted the help of friends for the moving video and posed various questions to them about their loss and bereavement.
The men and women write answers on placards, sharing how their loved ones died, with varying causes including cancer, a road accident and suicide.
The mourners then write down a message detailing how they felt after the death, with words ranging from ‘lost’ and ’empty’ to ‘heartbroken’ and ‘panic’.
They then share something they wish they could say to their late loved ones.
“I wanted to create something that people could relate to and shine a spotlight on grief. When your grieving you can feel like no one can relate to you, there’s people around you but you can’t connect, you feel like they don’t understand you. But in the video you can see the emotion, the men are sitting there crying, and it just shows other people that it’s OK to sit down and have a cry and be open about your grief,” Stephanie said.
She said she has been astounded by the reaction which has seen the video shared 50,000 times from her Facebook page.
“Grief is the one thing no one can lie about, you just can’t mask it. I felt the power of the video when we made it, but I was surprised at the reaction. I thought it would spread locally but I’m astounded by what has happened and by how open people have been in the comments. It makes me so proud to be promoting this conversation. I feel a huge sense of responsibility for the people in the video and I would love nothing more than for them to realise what they have done, it is their stories that people are connecting to.”
To watch the video click here
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