Sticky74

When Jonathan Walters was 11, his mum Helen sadly passed away from bowel cancer. She was only 40. About a week before she died, his dad sat him and his brothers down. “Your mum’s not going to be around for much longer.” Walters took himself away on his own. “I probably would have cried for about six hours, seven hours.” The day after Helen passed away, his dad sent him straight back to school. He did not really know what else to do. Walters walked back into his Year Six classroom and his mates immediately asked him: “Are you alright?” “You pretend you are.” From that point, that became how he dealt with it. “You put up a wall and nobody knows you.” His mum was barely spoken about afterwards. Walters later described her almost becoming a taboo subject in the family. He could be upset about her and still never really allow himself to grieve. “You ask me how I deal with it.” “I don’t deal with it.” “I lock it away. That’s how I deal with it.” But there was one thing about Helen that Walters carried with him. She was from Dublin. As a child he had spent summers in Ireland with her family, and when he started getting closer to becoming a professional footballer, he already knew which country he wanted to represent. “When my mother died, I promised I’d play for Ireland.” “For her.” Walters declared for the Republic of Ireland and eventually made his senior debut in 2010. Over the next few years he became one of the most important players in the side, but the night that brought everything back came against Bosnia in November 2015. Ireland were one game away from qualifying for Euro 2016. Walters had missed the first leg through suspension. He came back for the second in Dublin and scored both goals in a 2-0 win to send Ireland to the tournament. Afterwards, he went back out onto the pitch on his own looking for his family in the stands. For a player who had made that promise as an 11-year-old boy, there was only one person missing. “My mum passed away when I was 11 and I made the decision at a very young age to come and play for Ireland.” “She was smiling down on me tonight, I’m sure.” Even years later, standing with Ireland before a game could still take him straight back to her. “It’s very emotional when I hear the Irish national anthem.” “When you are younger you want to do everything to make your mum proud.” “Everything I did, I did for my mum.” #football