The Story of Geraldine

For those of you who have read A Different Familiar, you’ll know about a very important character named Matilda O’Conor. In short, she is a seventy-year-old single woman who lives in Galway, but grew up on Inishmore, and she plays an incredibly crucial part in the progression of the plot. I won’t say any more – I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who have yet to read the novel.

There is a story behind how Matilda came to be, and it began on a spring day when two friends and I had planned to take a day trip to Inishmore. In the early morning, we boarded a bus in Eyre Square, which was headed for the ferry ports at Rossaveal. I had elected to allow my friends to sit together on the bus and found a lone seat for myself by a window. Just before the bus pulled away and headed towards Salthill, a middle-aged woman took the seat next to me, greeting me with a smile and a quiet “hello.” That moment couldn’t have been more fortuitous.

She was slight with dirty blonde hair and introduced herself to me as simply “Geraldine.” I remember that she had soft blue eyes that tended to water when she spoke, and crow’s feet appeared at their edges when she smiled. We spent the entire bus ride conversing; she told me stories about working for the postal service and how she traveled to the Aran Islands twice a week to visit her mother who lived in a care facility. She began to tear up as she told me about the progression of her mother’s dementia – her story affected me so much that I began to tear up as well. I can remember offering some words of condolence and comfort, and in that moment, Geraldine and I built a sort of unspoken trust between us.

She then asked me all sorts of questions about how I came to live in Galway, what I was studying at NUIG, and what it was like being far away from my family. I told her about my passion for writing and how I’d fallen completely head-over-heels in love with Galway. She told me that she had backpacked across the United States when she was younger and urged me to embrace my time in Ireland with all my heart, which, I assured her, I already had. We admired the views outside the bus window while I told her about the trips I’d taken across her beautiful homeland, and she returned my stories with her own admiration of her favorite places she’d seen in the United States.

Even though we were simply two strangers conversing on a bus to Rossaveal, we took that short time to offer each other advice and comfort, which subsequently stuck with me. The depth of our conversation left me feeling like I’d gained a friend, and little did Geraldine know that she would eventually become the basis for the character of Matilda O’Conor. I’ll probably never see her again, but I would love for Geraldine to know what an impact she made on me. Without her, A Different Familiar would be very… well, different!

To this day, I still consider myself fortunate that I opted to sit alone on that bus, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met Geraldine and heard her inspiring story. I learned a lot from her on our trip to Rossaveal, but most importantly, my experience meeting Geraldine taught me that it is so incredibly important to make an effort to connect with others and empathize with them. So never be afraid to go it alone sometimes… you never know when you’ll meet your own Geraldine!

Thanks for reading!

Rhian