Tommy Fleming felt ‘really guilty’ for missing one parent more after they died on same day

Paddy and Annie Fleming both passed away in Mayo General Hospital within hours of each other back in 2012.

Tommy’s mum sadly suffered a stroke, while his dad had been brought to hospital with heart complications.

Speaking to RSVP Country, the singer opened up about how he dealt with grief after losing his parents, adding that he was his mother’s golden boy as the youngest child of six.

“I was treated differently and I can never say I wasn’t. My mum spoiled me rotten, as did my sisters. I got away with a hell of a lot more,” he said.

“After they passed away, what used to kill me was that I would sometimes end up missing one more than the other.

“I feel really guilty for that. Grief is a horrible road. You come to a point where one week you’re flying and you could even be flying for a year.

“The simplest thing can trigger a memory and those buried feelings. There was a woman in the shop one day. She was buying a packet of Emerald sweets. My mum used to eat them.

“I had to walk out, I couldn’t stay there in the shop. It takes a lot of work to get over that hump.”

Tommy said that he and his siblings leaned on each other for support when their parents died but “retreated back to our own corners” to process their grief.

“I’m the youngest of six. We’re all like the steps on the stairs. There’s only six years between me and the oldest.

“We’re very close. We all understand and respect each other’s boundaries.

After mam and dad passed away, it was the time during their illnesses that we spent so much time together.

“Just after their funerals, we retreated back to our own corners to figure it out for ourselves. That’s the one thing that we had to do to figure out our own grief.”