I think I need to find a bigger place
‘Cause when you have more than you think
You need more space

Eddie Vedder, Society

They had all been talking in their own language but this day, on Pentacost, they understood each other.

We’ve been listening a lot to the soundtrack of Into the Wild lately, by Eddie Vedder. The more I listened to it, the better it got.

One song, Society, changed my thinking.

When we talk about the human rights of people with disabilities, their right to inclusion, equality, company, participation, we always do this from the perspective of Society. The perception is that the person has a right not to loose Society. Which is one, maybe the correct?, way to look at it.

But what if it was Society who was loosing out not integrating those with a disability, isolating them, getting them out of mind and out of sight – which is what the reality is for many, especially for those with a sABI.

For whatever reason it never seems to dawn on us how much worse Society, how much we, would be off without them? How much Society would loose not having them around? Have you ever thought about this?

I didn’t know always, to be very honest, but I do know now that I would not be who I am, that I would be incomplete without Pádraig and what he is giving me.

We need to turn things on their head at times.

Here are the last picture from our trip of a lifetime.

A walk through Victoria, Canada, passing. by the “Irish Times”. A day room in the cheapest Seattle airport motel, the kind where you’d expect to see Norma Bates. A Chinese looking road sign which we only understood on second thoughts to mean: No pedestrian crossing. A traffic light sign making sure that all angles were covered. My new watch telling me what I already knew.

The Decision Support Services (DSS) have made available the background story videos of their nine Champions, Pádraig being one of them.

They have also launched their TV ad campaign you might have seen on the telly. Pádraig was watching it the other day on RTÉ One.

Even if we speak the same language we need to be inspired to understand each other.

Even if we think we understand each other, we need, at times, to consciously try and see ‘reality’ from different perspectives.

Pádraig couldn’t stop smiling when we shared stories from his Alaskan adventuress.

Sometimes I wonder whether he needs more space, because he has more than we think, and he needs space for it.

We need to give that space to him, even, or especially, if he cannot ask for it himself.

The core of man’s spirit comes from new experiences.

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

We didn’t go in a bus but on a boat. In the end, we had decided this was the best way to get to Alaska.

Here are the pictures: from Seattle to Ketchikan (small boat tour), Juneau (tram up the mountain), and Skagway (dog sleighs and gold panning).

The Internet is still pretty bad and getting these pictures up was half a miracle.

I’ll stop writing and let the pictures talk for themselves.

Ketchikan

Juneau

Skagway

We are at sea and on the way back to Seattle from where we’ll leave on Sunday evening to arrive back home on Monday.

This has been so much more than the trip of a life time.

Move on. Right. That’s what I’m going to do. In a few months, I’ll be fine, I’ll just grow a new heart.

Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks)

I cannot believe it, but here we are.

In Seattle.

Sleepless.

It’s midnight in Dublin and we are about to go out for a walk and have a bite to eat. We’re thinking Lobster Rolls. The kind people brought into Cape Cod Hospital for us when we couldn’t eat a thing.

After a long flight, we now have a day, which is really a night, to recover a bit, before we’ll get onto the boat tomorrow at around lunch time, which will really be dinner time, to bring us up North. It’s all mixed up.

When Pádraig worked on Cape Cod in 2013, he and a friend had planned to go to Alaska, going Into the Wild, following the journey of Christopher McCandless as described first by Jon Krakauer in his book, and then in by Sean Penn in his 2007 movie of the same name.

It’s one of my favourite movies. Then I learned after Pádraig’s accident that it was also one of his.

Pádraig never made it to Alaska. Instead, we were trying to cope as best as we could with our broken hearts, our broken dreams, trying to find hope in what we never accepted as a hopeless situation.

Over these past ten years, I had promised Pádraig and myself that, one day, we were going to go onto that journey. We were going to make happen what didn’t look like very likely to happen. Those broken hearts and those broken dreams were not going to stay broken forever.. They could be fixed.

There were times when it looked like we were going to fail. For all sorts of serious reasons.

When I was planning our journey, I saw it happening over many weeks, slowly, in a bus.

Eventually, we settled for what seemed to be the most sensible way of doing it.

One direct flight. A single base on a ship. Day excursions. All in just over a week.

The flight was tough. Not much room to move. Nine hours are a long time on a plane for anybody. They must have been an eternity for Pádraig. Even getting from the airport to our hotel was a challenge. I don’t think that taxi driver had ever taken four guests, one of them in a pretty big wheelchair, with half a dozen suitcases in one go into his car. We were just tired. He was very nervous.

But we got here. In one piece. And we slept a few hours.

In Seattle. The city where coffee was invented. The city of Frazier. Starbucks, Boeing, and Microsoft. Where people ask you about your day, what you’re up to, and all sorts of other things, when you’re just interested in buying a straight coffee. And they’re so nice about it that you couldn’t really tell them to mind their own bloody business. There is no way you could be bad humoured or impolite in such an environment. And, as we know, even fake laughter has the same (health) effects as the real thing.

This morning, or was it this evening, when we went out for bit to eat, Pádraig was the happiest man under the sun. As content as anybody could be. The real thing.

So were we all. Really happy. Perfectly content.

We haven’t really talked about it. In my head, I couldn’t think of a much bigger thing to happen than making it up the Inside Passage, direction Skagway.

As close as we can make it.

Into the Wild.

Sleepless in Seattle. Eating the Lobster Rolls we couldn’t eat ten years ago because we just could not eat back then with our broken hearts. Now we know that nothing is impossible. We’ll be fine. We’re growing new hearts. And we’re eating, drinking, and enjoying life again.

May the soft drizzle Mayo rain keep the suncream wet! Maith sibh!

A Well-Wisher

The unexpected happened: Mayo, with its ‘soft’ rain, welcomed Pádraig and his friends with the most beautiful skies and a calm, dry day.

Almost ten years after Pádraig’s accident and three years after they had to abandon their plan at a few days’ notice, because of COVID, to fundraise for him by climbing Ireland’s Holy Mountain, they came together and did it.

Three of them barefoot.

Everybody going up that mountain today is a hero.

How the three made it to the top barefoot, though, I cannot fathom. They are super heroes.

We finished the day in Campbell’s with a few drinks, lovely food, superb music, and the best company you could wish for.

A fantastic day Pádraig will never forget.

A day made possible only by the friendship of a very special group of people.

Thank you! – And also a big ‘thank you’ to all who have supported their fundraising efforts, here in Ireland and abroad!

We all slept well last night after an unforgettable day!