It’s a spring evening in 2019 and Zoe Holohan is out for dinner with her friend Caroline. Before she leaves, she hears the wind start to howl outside. Anxiety levels grow as the weather intensifies. By the time she has finished the short walk home, a windy storm has whipped up and suddenly Zoe is no longer outside her apartment.
Instead her mind has transported back to the wildfires in Greece on 23 July 2018.
Zoe says: “One minute, I am standing in the rain and the next thing, I am huddled on the footpath. And I can feel the fire, not the cold wet rain that is falling around me. 
“The drops are like bolts of fire attacking me, the wind is the screechy little tornadoes of the burning embers and debris around us and I am right back there on that road in Mati.”
On that road in Mati, Zoe’s life changed forever. It was there that Zoe’s darling husband Brian lost his life and where she nearly lost her own. Many people will remember the news reports – the worst wildfires in Greece in more than a century, 102 people killed, one Irish man, a young couple on their honeymoon. “That’s shocking,” you might have said, “an awful thing to happen, so tough.”
As the Smoke Clears
However, the reality that Zoe has lived with since that day really is the tough part, a journey she has bravely detailed in her book As the Smoke Clears. An eloquent and powerful writer, Zoe says that above all, this book is a love letter to her guy.
“Brian was an incredible man, I don’t want to paint him as a saint, but he definitely had the patience of a saint putting up with me,” she says laughing. “But honestly, he was the kindest person I ever encountered, there was something very special about him. And I didn’t want him to be remembered as a headline, as the man who perished in a fire on his honeymoon. Because that was how he died but I want to remember and celebrate how he lived, the wonderful person he was.”
While not shying away from the harsh reality of what she has gone through, Zoe’s book is a story about amazing human compassion. \ Claire Nash
Brian used to tease Zoe to get “writing that book of yours”. It’s a cruel twist of fate that this is the story she ended up telling, but Zoe says, the writing was cathartic and has helped the healing process. After months in hospital and upwards of 25 surgeries, Zoe put pen to paper simply to help her process everything.
“Not only had I lost my husband and the future we would have together, I was dealing with severe burns and health issues after the fire, including toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) a rare, life-threatening skin reaction that put me in a coma.”
Sadly just three weeks after the fire, Zoe’s father also passed away from cancer. “I had lost my two favourite people in the world and I really was trying to process why I was still here.”
Writing therapy
“I always kept journals and I started to write for nine to 10 hours a day. After a while, I realised, ‘Bloody hell, there is quite a story here’. You could say if my life was a movie, there are some magical characters in it.”
Zoe credits a lot of her recovery to cognitive behavioral therapy. \ Claire Nash
That’s the thing about As the Smoke Clears. Not surprisingly, it is a harrowing read with moments the are immensely sad and sometimes difficult to read, but it is also a story about amazing human compassion and the people that helped Zoe rebuild her life.
“The kindness and the love that I experienced from total strangers was astounding. The doctors, the surgeons, the nurses, they went way above the call of duty. And this book is also my thank you to them. I do feel a bit like Humpty Dumpty, that they helped to put the pieces of the old Zoe back together again.”
Snippets of the book stand out, a nurse called Josette climbing into the shower to help Zoe when she was in pain. Another nurse, Anna, who used cook her speciality omelette just for Zoe when she was too sick to eat. Dr Shelley in St James’s Hospital worked tirelessly to save Zoe’s life when she was flown home. But it was Dr Tsopelas in the Mitera Hospital in Greece who really went above and beyond the call of duty.
“Every night he would come in to say goodnight. Remember this was the worst wildfire in a century. Officially, 102 peopled died but there were hundreds more who were injured, maimed, had life-altering injuries. The staff were working around the clock. But every night, even after working very long days and performing numerous surgeries, he would come in and touch my face, and say, ‘You can go to sleep, you’re safe now Zoe’.”
The kindness of family and friends is referenced right throughout the book and Zoe says after she was discharged from hospital, her local community also helped her through.
“I live in an apartment block and I would have known my neighbours to see, I was friendly, but I wasn’t friends with them. Of course, Brian knew them all by name, where they worked and their kids,” she says with a smile. “So when I came home, I was absolutely overwhelmed by their welcome and their constant support and friendship.
“I also talk about my local SuperValu in the book and how it took me a long time to face doing the shopping given my appearance had been altered so much. So when I got to the checkout and the girl at the till came over to hug me and welcome me back, well it moved me to tears.
“It was these acts of kindness that kept me going in my very dark days and if there was that point of whether I would stay or go, all these little factors which may not seem significant on their own amounted to such kindness.”
Dealing with grief
There were days that Zoe found it hard to go on. “As difficult as the medical issues were and are – learning how to walk and talk and breathe again, all the physical therapy so I could use my limbs again – as difficult as all of those things are, it was more difficult to deal with the grief.”
Zoe says if it wasn’t for the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) she did with her therapist Sonya, she wouldn’t have been able to cope.
“Sonya was again one of those saviours put in my path. I was really at crisis point when I reached out to her and she helped me deal with the post traumatic stress of that day.
“Our brains are very clever and she described it to me as a filing cabinet. So the day of the fire, 23 July 2018, is a page in my filing cabinet and it’s the most traumatic event of my life and I was reliving it every day, on replay in the front of my brain. She explained that I needed to move it back in the filing cabinet. And I did that by going over that day again and again with her, in the minutest details.
“I’m telling you, it was torture and I would be crumpled in the seat at the end of the session, wondering why she was putting me through this hell. We did it every single week but slowly by breaking it down and talking about some of my beliefs about the day, that file just started to edge backwards in my filing cabinet. And the flashbacks started to ease and then over time, they stopped, it was incredible.
“The fire is still there, I still have nightmares and memories that will never go away, there is no escaping that day but it’s nice to be able to go for a walk in the park without being terrified that it’s going to get a bit breezy.”
Some scars won’t heal
The physical scars, however, will never disappear.
“The scars from the fire are a part of me and I’m disfigured forever on some parts of my body. There are still surgeries planned, but they will never go away. I am trying to accept that reality one day at a time, it’s a work in progress.
“I have been able to take back some control though; tattooist, Fran Hartnett, has done some amazing work on my chest and arms, to disguise some of my scars with her art. Again it’s been part of the healing process.”
Her book going on shelf is also another big step in her healing. “Honestly, I have been living the life of a hermit for nearly three years. I have closeted myself with a few close friends and family and then of course, the pandemic hit. So it feels with the book being published, I am putting myself out there into the world again. It’s like going from one extreme to another and its exciting and terrifying in equal measures.
“A lot of people have contacted me, many that knew Brian, reaching out and telling me stories about him. And its brilliant, Brian is my favourite topic of conversation,” she says laughing. “We were together for four years before we got married, the very best four years of my life so I am constantly curious, constantly craving little snippets of information about him, always trying to fill in those details of the jigsaw puzzle. And the stories make me laugh, but even the funny ones also make me cry too, because I miss him. I miss him so very much.”
Asking what Brian would think about all of this: “Oh I’d say he would love all the attention,” she says laughing. “He would love being in the spotlight.”
Pausing though, she says: “Mostly I hope he is proud and knows how very loved he was. I hope my dad – who was my number-one supporter – would be proud.
“I still feel Brian around me all the time but the last line in my book still rings true: how very lost I am without him.”
It’s a spring evening in 2019 and Zoe Holohan is out for dinner with her friend Caroline. Before she leaves, she hears the wind start to howl outside. Anxiety levels grow as the weather intensifies. By the time she has finished the short walk home, a windy storm has whipped up and suddenly Zoe is no longer outside her apartment.
Instead her mind has transported back to the wildfires in Greece on 23 July 2018.
Zoe says: “One minute, I am standing in the rain and the next thing, I am huddled on the footpath. And I can feel the fire, not the cold wet rain that is falling around me.
“The drops are like bolts of fire attacking me, the wind is the screechy little tornadoes of the burning embers and debris around us and I am right back there on that road in Mati.”
On that road in Mati, Zoe’s life changed forever. It was there that Zoe’s darling husband Brian lost his life and where she nearly lost her own. Many people will remember the news reports – the worst wildfires in Greece in more than a century, 102 people killed, one Irish man, a young couple on their honeymoon. “That’s shocking,” you might have said, “an awful thing to happen, so tough.”
As the Smoke Clears
However, the reality that Zoe has lived with since that day really is the tough part, a journey she has bravely detailed in her book As the Smoke Clears. An eloquent and powerful writer, Zoe says that above all, this book is a love letter to her guy.
“Brian was an incredible man, I don’t want to paint him as a saint, but he definitely had the patience of a saint putting up with me,” she says laughing. “But honestly, he was the kindest person I ever encountered, there was something very special about him. And I didn’t want him to be remembered as a headline, as the man who perished in a fire on his honeymoon. Because that was how he died but I want to remember and celebrate how he lived, the wonderful person he was.”
While not shying away from the harsh reality of what she has gone through, Zoe’s book is a story about amazing human compassion. \ Claire Nash
Brian used to tease Zoe to get “writing that book of yours”. It’s a cruel twist of fate that this is the story she ended up telling, but Zoe says, the writing was cathartic and has helped the healing process. After months in hospital and upwards of 25 surgeries, Zoe put pen to paper simply to help her process everything.
“Not only had I lost my husband and the future we would have together, I was dealing with severe burns and health issues after the fire, including toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) a rare, life-threatening skin reaction that put me in a coma.”
Sadly just three weeks after the fire, Zoe’s father also passed away from cancer. “I had lost my two favourite people in the world and I really was trying to process why I was still here.”
Writing therapy
“I always kept journals and I started to write for nine to 10 hours a day. After a while, I realised, ‘Bloody hell, there is quite a story here’. You could say if my life was a movie, there are some magical characters in it.”
Zoe credits a lot of her recovery to cognitive behavioral therapy. \ Claire Nash
That’s the thing about As the Smoke Clears. Not surprisingly, it is a harrowing read with moments the are immensely sad and sometimes difficult to read, but it is also a story about amazing human compassion and the people that helped Zoe rebuild her life.
“The kindness and the love that I experienced from total strangers was astounding. The doctors, the surgeons, the nurses, they went way above the call of duty. And this book is also my thank you to them. I do feel a bit like Humpty Dumpty, that they helped to put the pieces of the old Zoe back together again.”
Snippets of the book stand out, a nurse called Josette climbing into the shower to help Zoe when she was in pain. Another nurse, Anna, who used cook her speciality omelette just for Zoe when she was too sick to eat. Dr Shelley in St James’s Hospital worked tirelessly to save Zoe’s life when she was flown home. But it was Dr Tsopelas in the Mitera Hospital in Greece who really went above and beyond the call of duty.
“Every night he would come in to say goodnight. Remember this was the worst wildfire in a century. Officially, 102 peopled died but there were hundreds more who were injured, maimed, had life-altering injuries. The staff were working around the clock. But every night, even after working very long days and performing numerous surgeries, he would come in and touch my face, and say, ‘You can go to sleep, you’re safe now Zoe’.”
The kindness of family and friends is referenced right throughout the book and Zoe says after she was discharged from hospital, her local community also helped her through.
“I live in an apartment block and I would have known my neighbours to see, I was friendly, but I wasn’t friends with them. Of course, Brian knew them all by name, where they worked and their kids,” she says with a smile. “So when I came home, I was absolutely overwhelmed by their welcome and their constant support and friendship.
“I also talk about my local SuperValu in the book and how it took me a long time to face doing the shopping given my appearance had been altered so much. So when I got to the checkout and the girl at the till came over to hug me and welcome me back, well it moved me to tears.
“It was these acts of kindness that kept me going in my very dark days and if there was that point of whether I would stay or go, all these little factors which may not seem significant on their own amounted to such kindness.”
Dealing with grief
There were days that Zoe found it hard to go on. “As difficult as the medical issues were and are – learning how to walk and talk and breathe again, all the physical therapy so I could use my limbs again – as difficult as all of those things are, it was more difficult to deal with the grief.”
Zoe says if it wasn’t for the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) she did with her therapist Sonya, she wouldn’t have been able to cope.
“Sonya was again one of those saviours put in my path. I was really at crisis point when I reached out to her and she helped me deal with the post traumatic stress of that day.
“Our brains are very clever and she described it to me as a filing cabinet. So the day of the fire, 23 July 2018, is a page in my filing cabinet and it’s the most traumatic event of my life and I was reliving it every day, on replay in the front of my brain. She explained that I needed to move it back in the filing cabinet. And I did that by going over that day again and again with her, in the minutest details.
“I’m telling you, it was torture and I would be crumpled in the seat at the end of the session, wondering why she was putting me through this hell. We did it every single week but slowly by breaking it down and talking about some of my beliefs about the day, that file just started to edge backwards in my filing cabinet. And the flashbacks started to ease and then over time, they stopped, it was incredible.
“The fire is still there, I still have nightmares and memories that will never go away, there is no escaping that day but it’s nice to be able to go for a walk in the park without being terrified that it’s going to get a bit breezy.”
Some scars won’t heal
The physical scars, however, will never disappear.
“The scars from the fire are a part of me and I’m disfigured forever on some parts of my body. There are still surgeries planned, but they will never go away. I am trying to accept that reality one day at a time, it’s a work in progress.
“I have been able to take back some control though; tattooist, Fran Hartnett, has done some amazing work on my chest and arms, to disguise some of my scars with her art. Again it’s been part of the healing process.”
Her book going on shelf is also another big step in her healing. “Honestly, I have been living the life of a hermit for nearly three years. I have closeted myself with a few close friends and family and then of course, the pandemic hit. So it feels with the book being published, I am putting myself out there into the world again. It’s like going from one extreme to another and its exciting and terrifying in equal measures.
“A lot of people have contacted me, many that knew Brian, reaching out and telling me stories about him. And its brilliant, Brian is my favourite topic of conversation,” she says laughing. “We were together for four years before we got married, the very best four years of my life so I am constantly curious, constantly craving little snippets of information about him, always trying to fill in those details of the jigsaw puzzle. And the stories make me laugh, but even the funny ones also make me cry too, because I miss him. I miss him so very much.”
Asking what Brian would think about all of this: “Oh I’d say he would love all the attention,” she says laughing. “He would love being in the spotlight.”
Pausing though, she says: “Mostly I hope he is proud and knows how very loved he was. I hope my dad – who was my number-one supporter – would be proud.
“I still feel Brian around me all the time but the last line in my book still rings true: how very lost I am without him.”
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