Marcus Mac Conghaile wrote a poem about Pádraig, called ‘Pádraig’, which I posted on 25 April. Two days ago, Marcus was on Rónán Beo@3, an afternoon radio programme on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, and talked to Rónán about Pádraig, who he never met. It was another day I so regretted not being able to understand, never mind speak, Irish. Pat helped me, and it was another one of those moments, we kept swallowing our tears. Even if you don’t understand Irish (like myself), it’s worth listening to. – Thank you to Aonghus Ó hAlmhain, @aonghusoha, who tweeted about the programme!

 

 

 

 

 

Pádraig today had another busy day: physio therapy, sitting out in the wheelchair for 2-3 hours, speech valve for a bit longer than an hour, music therapy, and the Giro d’Schön on the MOTOMed-viva-2. He is doing well physically, and getting into a good shape. He needs much less oxygen than ever, and never has those crisis moments anymore when the level of oxygens dropped to a point that the staff started to panic and get really worried. What we hope is that with his physical better-being his brain will also become more active and engaged. We can feel that he is with us, the staff and therapists are telling us that Pádraig is connecting and collaborating; especially his music therapist is working really well with him. One thing he started to do is kissing Pat good-night before we leave.

Thank you again, Rónán, for keeping Pádraig’s story on everybody’s mind, thank you, Marcus, for speaking in such a lovely way about Pádraig. I suppose, we, I, would never heard about how much his friends love him had it not been for this terrible accident. I suppose, also, that he will be terribly embarrassed when he hears one day when people are saying about him.

I have been thinking what I, what we will be doing and should be doing next, how to continue, how to live our lives. Pádraig has touched so many people – and they have touched me. Cian made sure that I’d ‘run’ the Hamburg Marathon by telling me he’d join me. It’s the stories and the poetry that will channel the energy to keep the action going.

There is Rebecca Storm singing “Those were the days” on the Late Late Show. Time to go.