This week, Pádraig received the most beautiful bunch of flowers.
Ripple in still water.

He is moving and controlling his legs again much better, even the right leg,
lifting them up to help
when we are putting the footrests on his wheelchair.
They are back in action.
Following the problems he had with that right leg over the past year and a half,
this is a big deal.
A very big, a very beautiful deal.

 

He is (again) cycling the MotoMed himself without the engine kicking in,
keeping a really good balance between the left and the right leg.
Unthinkable for many months.

.

 

Pádraig is alive and kicking and tremendously enjoying his regular exercise here in the house and in An Saol’s Neuro Rehab Centre, inspired by him.
This, too, is a big, a very beautiful deal.

Pádraig has been assumed to be close to death, to have been better off dead, to be dead.

And that is the answer to some of my most burning questions: why is there no place, role or provision for him, and others like him, in society? Why does society not offer him, and others like him, the same respect and opportunities as others to live their lives? Why are concepts such as equality, integration, and participation not applied to him, and others like him?

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude”, Anne Frank wrote many years ago.

I don’t know anybody who is more grateful for their life than Pádraig. So am I. Tremendously grateful for his life. And so is the HSE. They sent him the most beautiful bunch of flowers this past week, thanking him for his participation in their video promoting the 2015 Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act and his contribution to their recent event launching the video.

Here is the deal.

People and society cannot continue to look at Pádraig, and others like him, as if they were dead, almost dead, that they would be better off dead, that they should be dead, even Grateful Dead.

We need to start sending more flowers to the living. Create ripples in still water.

We need to be with the living. 100%.