WHEN Mary Rossiter didn't come home on February 3rd her twin sons were worried. But their mother had gone missing before, and they presumed she would be back.
As the days dragged by, they made excuses for her. Home alone in inner city Dublin, they worried about being taken into care.
They told neighbours she was sick, and they collected her welfare payments. Last Friday morning Steve handed over £5.03p to the man next door who collects the milk money. His brother, Paul, paid the weekly credit union dues and cleared the slate in the local grocery shop.
They hung the washing on the line and prepared to go back to school after the mid term break. They didn't have much, but they had each other. Their greatest fear was that they would be separated.
On Tuesday the two 15 year old boys were taken to the hospital morgue to identify their mother. Mary Rossiter had been there for 14 days. She had never regained consciousness after suffering severe head injuries in a traffic accident three days earlier.
Gardai had issued a photograph of Mary, taken after her death. The description of a woman in her mid 30s, five feet tall slimly built, with dyed blond hair and hazel eyes, didn't alert neighbours.
Mary was 47, and much thinner than the photograph suggested. And no one had really seen her eyes. She wore thick spectacles which a CIE man on the scene had picked up, put in his pocket and forgotten about in the aftermath of the tragedy. Anyway, the neighbours thought she was in bed with flu.
Mary wore a gold band, inset with diamonds and rubies, on her right hand. Gardai were told married women in Germany wore their wedding rings on that finger. Mary had been knocked down by a bus as she crossed the road at Victoria Quay. For a while they believed she was a foreigner on her way to Heuston Station.
YESTERDAY shocked neighbours gathered at the church on James's Street to say goodbye to a friend and offer support to the two teenagers whom one garda described as the bravest kids he had met.
"Be not afraid, Mary will be with you always," local priest Father Tommy Murphy told the two boys. "You have been very brave over the last while. She would have been proud of the way you looked after the house and looked after each other. She loved you very much."
Mary Rossiter had a hard life, he told the congregation. "But she was a brave and proud woman. She was very independent and resourceful. With all the means at her disposal, she looked after her two boys, and looked after them well."
He told the two boys: "Mary walked the journey of life bravely. She was a strong and resilient woman with a great heart and great goodness. She was very proud of you, and you can be very proud of her."
Mary Rossiter had a drink problem. When she wasn't able to care for her boys, they looked after her. The three of them were very close, neighbours say.
They had lived in a flat in Mary Aikenhead House, with their dog Brandy, for the past five years. Mary worked as a home help, caring for the elderly in the area. She also took courses in arts and crafts at the local community centre.
Originally from Brittas near Blessington, Co Wicklow, she was one of six children. She was a friendly but private person.
She took a keen interest in the twins' education. Two weeks before she died, she called in to the Christian Brothers School to pay the £43 fee for the Junior Cert exam which Steve will sit this summer.
"They were very close. She cared for them, they cared for her," says the principal of the school, Brother Damien Brennan. "Mary was involved in the parents' group at the school. She was very concerned about the two lads. She wanted them to get a good education. It's a very sad situation."
Classmates of Steve and Paul formed a guard of honour as Mary Rossiter was taken from the church yesterday morning for cremation in Glasnevin Cemetery. Two red roses lay on the coffin. Her two boys walked behind.
