The heartbroken father of murdered Nicola Furlong has said he has finally accepted his daughter will never come home – but still struggles to visit her grave.
Andrew Furlong finds some peace visiting a remembrance garden in Wexford after Nicola was killed in a vile sex attack while studying abroad in Japan in 2012.
He said: “Some people can’t go to graves or don’t want to and can come here [to the garden] instead.
“I find it very hard to go to Nicola’s grave so I come here and sit there for 10 or 15 minutes.
“You get some solace or peace of mind but as soon as you get up your mind is gone racing again to what could be or what she would be doing.
“It’s no different that any parent that has lost or buried a child.”
And the distraught dad said he still bursts into tears when he builds up the courage to go to Nicola’s grave.
He said: “I feel that she’s not there, her body is there but I just always said that she’s away.
“Last December I finally accepted that she’s not coming home. And that she’s gone.
“I have gone to the grave once or twice but I can’t stay at the grave, I still burst into tears.
“You hear some parents that go to graves everyday but I still find it extremely hard to go there.”
The memorial garden, called ‘Cuan Aingeal’ has helped families and parents who need to grieve a lost child and members hope they can help others in other counties outside Wexford.
Mr Furlong told RTE’s Morning Ireland: “At the time [of Nicola’s death] there was a walk in town and from that it turned into getting a garden of remembrance going and it took five years.
“And other people that have lost kids that are going through the same as we are going through, they’ll be able to grieve here.
“It is helping me I think, and helping anyone else that’s coming too.”
