Bono opens up about the heartbreaking pain of his mum’s death
U2 singer Bono has opened up about the heartbreaking experience of losing his mum at a young age and how difficult life was after her death because he and the rest of his family did not speak about her again.
In an excerpt from Bono’s latest memoir Surrender: 40 songs, One Story, published by The New Yorker, the singer revealed, “I have very few memories of my mother, Iris. Neither does my older brother, Norman. The simple explanation is that, in our house, after she died she was never spoken of again”.
“I fear it was worse than that. That we rarely thought of her again. We were three Irish men, and we avoided the pain that we knew would come from thinking and speaking about her”.
The 62-year-old went on to tell the story of his granddad’s funeral, where his mum ‘fainted’ by her dad’s grave. “I spot my father carrying my mother in his arms through a crowd, like a white snooker ball scattering a triangle of colour”.
“He’s rushing to get her to the hospital. She has collapsed at the side of the grave as her own father is being lowered into the ground”.
All of Bono’s aunts and cousins had said Iris would be fine as she was rushed to hospital with her husband by her side and Bono’s brother Norman driving. Bono stayed with his extended family at his nan’s house to “say goodbye to my grandfather”. The Beautiful Day singer recalls his family’s voices saying, “Iris has fainted. Iris has fainted. She’ll be OK, she’s just fainted”.
Bono then reflected on his aunt telling him that his mum was not going to make it. “Ruth, my mother’s younger sister, bursts through the door. ‘Iris is dying. She’s had a stroke’”.
“Everybody crowds around. They’re weeping, wailing, struggling to stand. Someone realises I’m here, too. I’m fourteen and strangely calm. I tell my mother’s sisters and brothers that everything is going to be OK”.
The dad-of-four added, “Three days later Norman and I are brought into the hospital to say goodbye. She’s alive but barely…Ruth is outside the hospital room, wailing, with my father, whose eyes have less life in them than my mother’s”.
“I enter the room at war with the universe, but Iris looks peaceful. It’s hard to figure that a large part of her has already left. We hold her hand”.
The memoir also features stories of Bono's time at school, his interest in music from a young age, and more anecdotes from his childhood, including the only time his mum saw him preform publicly.
