There is this brilliant cover by Johnny Cash of Nick Cave’s song Mercy Seat, a friend told me today. Listen to it when you get home. I looked up the lyrics (just in case I couldn’t follow when listening) and thought it’s a song about someone innocent about to be executed.
Then I was listening to the song…
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I’m yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I’m not afraid to die.
(That last line changes to “And I’m afraid I told a lie” in the last line of the song.)
… and I thought: in a more abstract way, this song is about life. It’s like the passion. And the end is about mercy. Whether truth or lie – what does it matter in the end? Fighting eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, measuring of proof – what does it matter?
Following last night’s venture into the wild of Patti’s and Nick’s powerful embrace, we had a lie in this morning. I didn’t spend much time with Pádraig but went to a meeting with the local HSE and then on to Limerick for three meetings, only one of which worked out as it just overshot its allocated time by miles and I wasn’t determined enough to just finish it. It was a bit of a disaster. Concocted by moi. Not good.
Though there are two bits of good news: we will have control over Pádraig’s budget soon (probably within two months) which will make organising his care etc. hopefully much more straight forward; AND: our local HSE area has now received the first tranche of funding for the An Saol Foundation pilot project and is, apparently, ready to sign the agreement and pass that funding on to An Saol. It has not happened yet – but it becomes increasingly more likely that it really will happen!
Hospi-Tales 