Of the hundreds of people caught in the Omagh bomb Kevin Skelton was one of the lucky ones. He walked past the car packed with explosives only minutes before it detonated.
His wife, Philomena, was killed instantly, and his youngest daughter, Shauna, suffered serious head injuries. While Kevin and his other two daughters who were in Omagh that day, were virtually unscathed, their agony has been no less immense than those who suffered physical injury.
This week, while all Ireland marks the first anniversary of the Omagh atrocity, the Skelton family will remember a devoted wife and mother in their own quiet, dignified way: an anniversary Mass on Sunday morning, and later a few friends and family will visit their home.
While he appreciates the many people who have done so much for the victims of Omagh, Kevin Skelton and his family feel that after the weekend they should be left alone to get on with their lives as best they can.
He admits the past year has been tougher than he could ever have imagined: not only had he lost his partner of 20 years in the most appalling circumstances, but his family had lost its pivotal figure, the one person around which everything revolved.
In Co Tyrone, Kevin Skelton is best known as a referee in Gaelic football, hurling and soccer.
It was a full-time commitment, literally seven days a week, sometimes two games in one day. Work was demanding also, driving a lorry at a local quarry, and between the two there wasn't much time spent at home.
Since last August Kevin has refereed only one game. Nor has he had the heart to go back to work: with three teenagers still at home, he feels he has to be there for them, to try as best he can to be both mother and father.
"Now it's down to me. She had me spoilt, it's only now I realise the amount of work she did and how I took it for granted. The second girl is waiting on her GCE results and is asking me what happens if she fails. Mena was always there. When they go back to school the house is so silent, there's just me here."
The past couple of weeks had been happier with a young Romanian orphan, who Mena first brought on holiday to Ireland two years ago, back for the first time since the bomb. However, with her departure on Monday the family had no distractions from the inevitable memories that come flooding back.
It was the usual Saturday family visit to the nearest big town to buy school uniforms. Kevin had wandered into a hardware shop, leaving his wife and daughters deliberating over sizes and prices in the draper's next door.
"I was just going back. I said to myself she might need money, then it went off. I found her lying face down in the rubble, the clothes blown off her. A fireman I knew, Paddy Cullen, lifted her arm to feel a pulse and walked on. I knew she was dead."
Philomena Skelton was buried in Drumquin cemetery just yards from her family home at Dooish, a row of council houses on a quiet country road in west Tyrone. This Sunday neighbours and friends will call for a quiet word.
Then the Skeltons will be left to get on with what remains of their shattered lives.