In your joy, in your happiness, in your achievement, we all benefit.
Prince Harry at the opening of the 2023 Invictus Games in Düsseldorf

Having arrived back from Lourdes early in the week, I went to Düsseldorf where the Invictus Games were finishing and the annual RehabCare fair had just started.

I can’t think of a place in the world that would be comparable to Lourdes. Being there feels like being in another space of time. There are the tacky shops selling statues of Mary right beside quite dangerously looking pocket knifes. There is a very commercial aire around the declared holiness of the place. But there is also a sense of companionship that is hard to match.

One of the most lasting memories from Lourdes must be the participation in a candle light procession. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people walk around the huge square in front of the Basilica while praying the Ave Maria in a dozen or so different languages, singing the famous Ave Maria of Lourdes, and carrying candles protected by little paper cups – which at times, and especially when it becomes too windy, end up in flames. At the end of the procession, Pádraig had a front row seat, being able to see the choir and lectors, and observing the groups from different countries as they were arriving with their flags and banners for the closing ceremony.

Before going, Pádraig had been asked by a few people to light a candle for them in Lourdes. Another century-old tradition. Hundreds of candles of all sizes are burning day and night in Lourdes. When they’ve burnt out, their remaining wax is collected and recycled. The heat of the candles burning is so intense that some melt and bent before they had a chance to burn up fully.

In a strange way, Lourdes changes me each time I’m there. I wouldn’t want to stay there more than those few days our journey usually lasts. And normally, life back home quickly takes over whatever impressions I had brought back home. Though – I am getting a feeling that some of these impressions are being transformed into something more lasting.

I’ll find out.

Only a day after having returned, I went to RehaCare in Düsseldorf. It’s branded as the world’s largest rehabilitation fair. It was also around the time that the Invictus games Prince Harry had opened earlier were coming to an end.

Right on arrival, I was reminded that Germany is much closer to Ukraine than far away Ireland. A country-wide alarm was trialled which did not just sound from the rooftops but from every mobile phone around. Maybe it was meant to make you feel more secure – in my case it achieved the opposite.

RehaCare made my head spin. There was everything you could possibly imagine for people with disabilities, and more.

Here is a short, less than two-minute, video impression from my two-day visit.

I could easily have spent at least another day there.

There were sailing boats for assisted sailors, built in China at an affordable price and exhibited by the Münster Sailing Club; a dozen different sports on offer to people with different abilities from soccer, to cycling, to trekking; there were wheelchairs running on just two wheels if you wanted to get up the stairs in that chair; adjustable tables; foot warmers; nepalese ‘singing bowls’ for sound and vibration therapy; wheelchair accessible cars with robotic arms to store your chair away in the boot; a wide range of bicycles that carry wheelchairs; devices that looked as if they had been taken away from torture chambers; as well as brain-computer-interface games and competitions, balance training aids, and robotic arms able to bring food or drinks directly to your mouth. There was a glove, developed by students from the technical university of Aachen, which sensor your fingers’ movements and converts them into electronic signals allowing you to play games by just moving one or a number of your fingers.

What really made RehaCare for me, however, was being able to meet long-standing friends, many of whom have not just supported Pádraig and our family, but also the development of the An Saol Foundation and its Santry-based Centre.

One example of a chance encounter I had almost a year ago was with a small company manufacturing something that looks, at first glance, incredibly simple – but turns out to be quite sophisticated when you look a little closer or, even better, try it out yourself.

Here is what I mean. Just look at both of Padraig’s hands with and without the “Handscupe“. He can use the Handscupes when he is cycling – though they are much better for relaxation. “Yoga for the hands.”

The Handscupes are manufactured in different sizes to fit different types of hands. They are not just used in a clinical environment but also by professional high performance sports people, e.g. basketball players, for recovery and relaxation.

For the first time ever, this yearI spent hours collecting information and talking to organisations who support people to plan and realise assisted living arrangements. Several models have been developed by different organisations across Germany over the past decades.

It was a mind opener to hear people describing mixed living arrangements with people from all sorts of different backgrounds, different ages, and different abilities. All realised by the most appropriate and suitable ownership arrangements: from private ownership to local government-owned, to cooperative driven.

There is no doubt that these models will guide us when we develop our own ideas for assisted living spaces with the An Saol Foundation.

Unconquered. – Because:

We are the masters of our fate: We are the captains of our souls.

Invictus.