On the forth of Advent, Michael D. wished everyone in Ireland and, in a special way, the extended Irish family abroad a peaceful Christmas. He highlighted the core Irish values

of care, solidarity, trust, and responsibility. He encouraged the Irish people to be, in an ethical sense, one another’s keeper. While he had worked, successfully, with young Irish people in the past year (“Irish young people have pride in their country”), he announced that, in the coming year, he will focus on a discussion of ethics “in all aspects of our lives”. – I have lived in Ireland longer than in any other place, including Germany. I have spent almost all of my working life in Ireland. I know that I should be in Ireland right now, with Pádraig, together with all of his family, and all of his friends. Yet, we are a thousand miles away. And we are the lucky ones. Lucky…

Every morning, I listen to the Irish news, and I know that Michael D. will need all his strength and all the support he can get to make his efforts to focus on ethics a successful one. I hope that he will be able, in a year’s time, to look back at the year and be satisfied that he changed the ethics of Ireland’s leading classes. It’ll be a mammoth task.

Pádraig is now mostly just on breathing support; only every 4-6 hours do nurses switch on the respirator for 2 hours or so to give him a break. I mentioned before that we all have noticed an increase in his level of awareness, some slight reactions. In different circumstances, it would probably not even be worth mentioning – in his, every little step forward, even the tiniest, gives renewed hope for better times to come. He got his hair washed, as promised, and in expectation of his sisters to arrive. I had mixed up the days and had told a nurse one of them would arrive today, when it’ll be only tomorrow that she will come to Hamburg. When she was asking, Pat very kindly explained about this phenomenon of ‘senior moments’ which you can have, even if you are not that senior…

Yesterday, I mentioned the biggest police caravan I ever witnessed. I also mentioned that we broke the 10,000km mark in just six weeks. So I hope, you’ll like the short video and picture illustrating these events.

The apartment is almost ready. Just a few more screws to screw in (not more than 200 left is my guess), and it’ll be ready for the arrival of the rest of the family for Christmas. What a Christmas it will be…

Today’s German Music Tip
Marlene Dietrich, Lili Marleen (1944). The words to this song were written in 1915 by a Hamburg (!) school teacher. For some stupid reason, I just could not think of any other ‘soothing’ song, I sang this non-stop when the kids were small in an effort to put them to sleep.
What’s hot
Nights getting shorter
What’s cold
Christmas week at 14o C
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Habseligkeiten

Twitter: @forPadraig
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web: http://www.caringforPadraig.org