There are two Darby’s. One existed before Sinead O’Connor, and one after.

The one before was alone, confused, compressed into silence and doubt by a world that denies truth. In 1990, when I first heard Sinead, I was fifteen years old. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I certainly wasn’t planning on staying. Then I heard her, as so many did, her voice a line cast from truth and honesty. Though her lyrics were hyper-specific to her circumstances – often her diary simply set to music, save for the religious imagery and allusions – her openness opened others. Her candor, her flaws, her naked humanity brought people into community with her, with others, with themselves.

I honestly don’t know what to say about Sinead. She was everything to me. They buried her today in Bray Head. I dreaded this day for years, I think. I expected it. I didn’t expect this hurt to linger as long as it has since the news of her passing. I’m playing her music. I’m avoiding certain songs. Honestly, most of I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. It’s too personal, too painful, too close.

I’m listening a lot to Faith And Courage, I think because it’s where I rediscovered her. After her career disintegrated (in the States) after Saturday Night Live, I lost track of her at some point. In 2000, I attended the Irish Writing Program at Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland. In one class, our teacher played “Daddy I’m Fine” off the record in connection with a writing exercise I’ve forgotten. I hadn’t heard it before, and then I learned the record had just come out. I reconnected with Sinead, and I think that’s what I’m trying to do this week. Find her again.

I nearly met Sinead three times, all in Dublin. The third time was at Vicar Street, where I saw her perform in 2014. I was in the front row, a few feet from her, mesmerized as I was at fifteen. As hopeless. I was living in Dublin. I’d left the Aran Islands a week or so before. I’d left my job a few months before. I thought I had found my life finally on Inishmore, and then I didn’t. I was lost, confused, wondering who I was and where I was going. And I found Sinead as I had as a teenager. Her voice found me. The passion. Surety. Relentless hope. There was only hope in her voice, even when it was breaking.

Most days I still think I’m aimless and hopeless. When I get lost or stuck or down, I go back to Sinead. More and more in recent years, it felt like she didn’t have someone or something to cling to. It breaks my heart that someone who saved lives, more than she could ever know, would feel so alone.

I don’t know what to say.

What do you say? Thank you, Sinead. Safe home.