‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do. You just have to keep going. You will get somewhere.

There is a lot of uncertainty here. Nearly too much for my German mind.

We need a goal, know what we are aiming for – right?

What about getting that dream job? Buying a gorgeous house? Getting married to the love of your life? Having beautiful children? That’s the way we ought to go, right?

Last week, Pádraig went to see Foil Arms and Hog in Vicar Street with a friend. Live performances are so much better than recordings – which means a lot in the case of these three lads.

The same friend and Maria went out to see the “Friends Experience” the next day, the set of the famous and long-running Manhattan-based comedy show.

Could it get any better?

Another friend of Pádraig’s came to visit during the week. He had been with Pádraig the day of the accident in Cape Cod Hospital, the first to arrive there. He was asked twice by nurses whether he was going to consent to donating Pádraig’s organs. The clinicians would have told us, no doubt, that this had been an emergency situation. That they had not been able to contact us and thus had asked the person closest to Pádraig who was present.

He didn’t consent and Pádraig is not only alive. He has inspired the An Saol Foundation and transformed, possibly saved, the lives of many people. He is running the place and nothing would happen without him pushing it along, with some assistance.

We listen to RTÉ’s Playback programme on Saturday mornings and usually turn off when Richard Curran’s The Business begins. Yesterday was different as he was talking to Jack Kavanagh. Jack, who suffered a spinal cord injury about 11 years ago, very eloquently described what he made out of his new life that suddenly had confined him to a wheelchair. Jack keeps fit and works, I think mostly on his podcast, social media accounts, and as a motivational speaker. I heard him saying many things Pádraig would say if he had a voice. Things that we say for him.

It’s the free spirit and the true heroes who don’t go the way they ought or wished to go but keep going anyway, perhaps even Into the Wild, and engage with and make the best out of whatever they meet on their way. Not just for themselves, but for others too.

They know that they’ll be getting SOMEWHERE as long as they keep going.

And never give up.