It's been five years and nine months since Bridget McAnallen found her son, the Tyrone football star Cormac, dead in his bed, yet to this day she cannot bring herself to alter his bedroom.

His shoes sit where he left them, shirts hang in the wardrobe, and the drawers are filled with unworn football gear, gifts from sports clothing firms, still untouched in their packaging.

The trophies, awards and the countless medals, including the precious All-Ireland that Cormac won just six months before his death, are in another room at the McAnallen family home, where they serve as cherished mementoes of a son lost at the brutally young age of 24. There are some sights, however, which are too painful for the McAnallens to contemplate -- the Tyrone football team, minus Cormac, being one.

"I had to stop going to the matches," admits Bridget. "It was too hard to watch. We went to the Mayo match a fortnight after Cormac died, but I had to look elsewhere on the pitch away from the area where he would have been playing. We went to a lot of matches over the next year or two, but it would never be the same again and we couldn't keep on going."

The details of Cormac McAnallen's sudden death from an undetected underlying heart condition might perhaps have become clouded in the public memory; after all, a number of high-profile sportsmen have died in similar circumstances at a tragically young age. But for his family, those details are, of course, crystal clear.

It was in the early hours of March 2, 2004, and Cormac -- who was working as a teacher and sports co-ordinator at a local school -- was asleep at the family home in the Brantry, a rural area near Dungannon, after a busy weekend of football, golfing and socialising when his brother Donal heard something odd: a snoring-type noise that was so loud he thought Cormac might be playing a practical joke.

Donal went to investigate and found Cormac lying on his side in bed, unresponsive. Bridget and her husband Brendan -- taking instructions over the telephone from a doctor -- desperately tried to resuscitate him. But by the time the ambulance arrived, Cormac was dead, leaving behind him a heartbreak that engulfed his family, his fiancée Ashlene and the legions of GAA fans, team-mates, players and pupils whose lives he had touched.

This was a special young man, everyone agreed, who not only had achieved wonderful sporting success, but had done so with humility and grace. He was clever, articulate, and generous with his time, always the first to help out younger players and to offer words of advice.

"It has been said that (Cormac) has left behind much, much more than an empty jersey hanging on a peg,'' said President Mary McAleese in a tribute. "For Cormac left the gifts of exemplary leadership, of passion for life itself, of discipline, sacrifice and courage, of generosity. Here was a life built on good choices, built in fact on goodness itself."

The president's thoughtful words were reflected by the massive turnout at Cormac's funeral. In the midst of the anguish, Bridget McAnallen remembers feeling strangely calm. "I've been to so many wakes for people killed in the Troubles, or by suicide or road accidents, and you get used to meeting people who have just lost someone. In so many cases, they seem to be able to cope very well.

"They show an ability to talk and behave quite normally. I suppose the physiological explanation is that you get a huge boost of adrenaline. The spiritual explanation is that you get strength from God. In my case, it was just numbness.

"And you think, what is the point of crying? All the crying you can do is not going to bring him back. You also respond to other people's good wishes: they hug you and they cry. That sympathy really helps."

What's more, Bridget did not struggle to accept that her son was gone. "The concept that someone of Cormac's age could die was not a strange one to me. There was one young guy, a team-mate of Cormac's, I was there when he was fatally injured during a football match. I saw him being carried off in a blanket. So I had thought about these things."

Bridget -- who had battled depression in the past -- was surprised at her ability to cope. She believes it was because she had no regrets about her relationship with Cormac.

"I felt that I had done everything that I could for my son. We had a great relationship. I regretted that he was gone, but I had to say to myself, this is God's will and I have to deal with it. This is fate.

"I had learnt how to deal with bad luck and misfortune through a series of things that had happened in my life. I knew that it does make you stronger, if you can come to terms with difficulties and disappointment."

While some couples find the strain of losing a child too much to bear Bridget and her husband Brendan, a successful businessman, were drawn closer together

"He had always been very busy, and we had both been involved in community -- we had a hectic family life. Over time we got back to a certain type of normality. Family members need to help one another. My husband continued with his business, I continued with community work and being involved in the local historical society, my oldest son is finishing his PhD in history now and my youngest son Fergus is involved in the business. We were all involved in so many things running helter skelter. But eventually through time we realised we had to stop and support each other."

One thing they did together as a family was to set up the Cormac Trust, a foundation which has worked hard to raise awareness of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in young people. There are a number of heart defects that can cause SCD and many of them can be detected by a simple screening process. The trust encourages athletes and the relatives of those who've died from SCD -- who may also be at risk -- to get screened.

"Once we realised there was a group of (heart) conditions that nobody knew about, we felt the whole country should be warned and getting screened," says Bridget.

There have been poster campaigns, charity runs, defibrillators distributed to assorted sporting clubs and just last week, the Cormac Trust donated €30,000 to the Mater Hospital's screening programme. These gestures are the best way the McAnallens have of honouring Cormac's memory.

"Cormac really was a remarkable person," says Bridget. "He was humble, and did everyday nice things. Of course I still wish that he would just walk through the door, but I am able to concentrate on all the good memories. I have tried to use those memories to do positive things in his honour."

To find out more about screening and sudden cardiac death in young people, log on to www.thecormactrust.com

Irish Independent