You know, one can get carried away. – I am sure you know the feeling. You sit down in the morning and when you get up it’s late afternoon. You haven’t eaten, your back hurts, and the day is as good as gone. It happens to me when I am doing stuff that moves me, that is important, that I am really really passionate about. The world around me could blow up in smoke and I probably wouldn’t notice.

Today was one of those days. Almost.

In the middle of it, Pat came in and showed me an email.

It was the last email she and any of us received from Pádraig, just three days before the accident. It wasn’t the last contact we had, just the last email exchange. He was about to go for a swim. “All’s well.”

Suddenly, all this ‘stuff’ that I had been doing, all the ‘important’ things that were carrying me away, everything just stopped and the world came down on me like a ton of bricks. There was no work, no lectures, no hospital, no doctors, no campaign, no blogs, no websites, no politicians, no parliamentary questions, no reports, no strategy papers, no interviews, no articles, no radio programmes. It was all gone in a flash. This was only and exclusively about Pádraig, and how his life had changed from “all’s well” to silence. All in a flash, when he was hit by the van.

I want to share this with you, but especially with all the swimmers that took part in past swimming events for Pádraig (in TCD Swimming Club, and Lynn and Irene in NAC) and, of course, the upcoming Snámh Phádraig this weekend, this mad and crazy swim around all-Ireland, organised by Aodhán and his friends.

You might recognize some of the chaos in our life.  The funny thing about the episode at the airport was that the only reason I did not manage to travel on Pádraig’s passport was that the names on the passport and the ticket did not match – there didn’t seem to be a problem with the “match” between my face and the picture in his passport. And I must have looked exceedingly young that day too. – I never managed to tell him this really funny detail. The next phone call I got from Pat when I had arrived in Sanya on Hainan was about the accident, just a few days later.

From: “nnn”
Date: “ddd”
To: “nnn”

Dear Patrick,

Tried to ring you the last couple of nights, hope you are feeling better. You probably have no credit on your phone. Papa got to the airport in a panic on Saturday amidst road works on the airport road.
On our way back home Maria and me get a call, he took your old passport instead of his, we were in Ballymun. He just about made his flight, we drove back in the bus lanes breaking all speed limits.

Weather at the weekend was dreadful, stormy and cold. {}

Talk to you soon

Love
Mam

Pádraig Schaler nnn@gmail.com   6/24/13
to me

Hi Mam,

Ye, I’m out of minutes so I can only get text messages at  the moment
so if anything happens I can still get texts. It’s so hot here today
we’re going for a swim in the lake beside us.

All’s well,
Patrick

 

How normal life was then: chaotic, hectic, adventurous, happy.

Summertime, so hot, we’re going out for a swim in the lake beside us.

How different life is now.