There will be a today without a tomorrow.

Paddy Barrett

Here…

… there are familiar things. The ones I remember. Recognise. Those who bring memories.

Like the walk out across what used to be a bridge and is now often just a sand-covered boardwalk to the Arche Noah, the restaurant a mile off-shore where I spent many summers with my family, working, starting from my school-going days. The one Pádraig once urged me to buy. The one we went to with him on a day-trip from Hamburg when he had just been discharged from hospital.

Or the visit to the Tuesday evening’s Musikantentreff in Garding where the audience is often as “sehenswert” as the bands playing. Only that last Tuesday it was raining and there were few people around. Those who were, were hard core, some sharing their rain gear with Pádraig. It wasn’t quite like Wacken, were they weren’t able to handle the rain and resulting muck for the first time in the long history of the world’s biggest heavy metal open air – but it was pretty wet. Luckily, we still managed to have the crêpes, the bratwurst, and the chips.

There are the unexpected and funny things. Like the neighbour’s horse sticking out his head through the hedge just beside our place. Or the really unfortunate naming of a pizza: “Original Wagner, big city Budapest”. When that pizza came out, I’m sure nobody had heard of that privat army now threatening not just Ukraine, but other Easter and Central European, as well as African countries.

There is Pádraig’s ongoing exercise and therapy programme – with a really great OT and an amazing physio who right from the start had no problem working with Pádraig, manually transferring him and doing challenging exercises, mostly for his upper body.

Above all, the “firsts” keep coming. This time Pádraig showed us the huge difference his ptosis glasses make to his participation in and perception of the world around him. But this was not enough. He also showed us how he can take off his glasses when he has had enough of them.

Today, we listened to an interview with Paddy Barrett by Brendan O’Connor.

It was 20 minutes well spent. Paddy made a few really interesting points. Like: research has shown that we will have spent 90% of the time we will ever spend with our parents by the time we hit 18. That we often wait to make “quality time”, instead of just spending time with the ones we love. There is no “quality time”. Just time. That a lot of the things we are planning for the future never materialise. And the only people who will remember how much time we spent in the office are our children.

But the remark that really hit hard was that we need to remember that the day will come that won’t have a tomorrow. And we won’t know until there is no tomorrow.

It hit me so hard because this, for me, isn’t empty talk.

I’ve had the experience of feeling that there wouldn’t be a tomorrow for us.

It is horrifying.

It taught me that betting on life in the future is a risky business.

It is today we are living.