"This is my mom. She was 44 when she died."

Connor holds out a prayer card with her photo. "I said this prayer today. It talks about an embrace from heaven, and I really felt it, Father.”

Around his neck, he wears her ring on a cord. “I carry it with me, day and night. She’s always close.”

I met Connor outside a busy Dublin mall. After working at the library, I was eating a quick salad from Lidl when he approached me. We chatted about life, and I told him I’m here from the Netherlands to film a series on Irish saints.

"Dublin is full of history," he said. "You should visit the crypt of St. Michan’s Church. It’s near the Franciscans’ shelter, where I go often.”

He nodded to a stack of cardboard boxes nearby. “That’s where I live now. I used to be dependent on alcohol and meds, but I’ve been clean for a year. I owe it to prayer.”

He shared the pain of losing his mom. “I was in a bad state when she passed, and I thought, ‘She only ever knew me like this.’ That was my wake-up call. I wanted to change.”

He smiled, a little self-conscious but hopeful. “I had this dream, you know? That if I got clean and made a real fresh start, maybe I could do something meaningful—maybe even become a priest or a saint someday. I wanted to be someone she could be proud of.”

Eventually, he went to confession. “It was so hard, confronting everything. I cried that day, but afterward, I felt such relief. When I first quit drinking, I was full of anger, but over time, I’ve found peace. I read somewhere, ‘I am not my feelings.’ I can step back, let them pass.”

Connor looked at me and smiled, “Do you know that story of the Chinese man who broke his arm?”

I shook my head.

“A man’s cow dies. The villagers say, ‘Such bad luck.’ He replies, ‘Maybe.’ Then he breaks his arm. Again, they say, ‘Bad luck,’ but he says, ‘Maybe.’ Then a war breaks out, and the government rounds up cattle and recruits the men for the army. But this man has no cow, and his broken arm keeps him from being sent to war."

"Sometimes I think my journey’s like that. Bad things happen, but that doesn't mean my future will be bad as well. It’s hard to look back, but I see how far I’ve come.”

"And that gives me hope for the future. I’ll keep working on myself, and maybe one day, I’ll make her proud.”

He glanced down at the prayer card, his thumb tracing its edges. “And now and then, I feel that embrace from heaven—just a little reminder that I’m not alone.”