Former Cork camogie captain Anna Geary said it took her a while to process the phone call when she learned her father Michael was terminally ill.
To the RTÉ presenter and radio host, her father was invincible.
Her whole life turned upside down when he died just six weeks after doctors found a tumour in his back.
Anna said: “My dad was in his early 60s, he was so healthy; we used to joke – he was a farmer – if he spent the night outside in the pouring rain he wouldn’t even have a sniffle the next day.
“If there was meat in the fridge a week old only for the dogs, if my dad ate it, he would be grand – he’d a stomach of steel. So, he had this invincibility in my eyes. So, to find out so suddenly and out of the blue that he was ill…”
Speaking to Carl Mullan on his Phone Truths podcast yesterday, she continued: “He had a bit of back pain, and he went in and they found a tumour and it had spread, and within six weeks he was gone. To find out like that it was hard to believe. I think I took the phone call and went about my day.”
Anna is the eldest in her family and her dad’s death changed the dynamic at home.
She said: “Our whole life turned upside down and when you lose anybody in your family, particularly a parent the dynamic of your family shifts. And I was the oldest. Suddenly you’re not a child.
“I had to step up and all the rigmarole that comes with consultants and appointments.
“I think if there is people listening going through that, it is allowing yourself the space to process that, because I didn’t process it immediately and didn’t process it until he was gone.”
Anna said learned a lot from her grief in recent years.: “It was a bolt of reality for me that things can change in an instant.”
As Dancing With The Stars returns to our screens next week, Anna also recalled her time on the show after reaching the final with her pro partner Kai Widdrington.
She said: “I was missing the challenge of high-level sport, missing an outlet. And obviously loved the glitz and glamour but also the process of the training and not quite knowing when I stood on the dancefloor if I would remember it all.”
Anna and her husband Kevin Sexton welcomed their son Ronan last summer and she said there is no right or wrong when it comes to what she shares with her followers, but it can feel hard to be in control as you never know who is watching on Instagram stories.
She said “I don’t want him to be part of my business per se because he is his own person.
“But my family life and my work life is a bit blurred, there’s no hard and fast rule where I go to the office and come home, I work for myself. I just find it’s a bit of a minefield.”
Listen to Phone Truths with Carl Mullan on Spotify, Apple, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts every Tuesday.