The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The priest and the Levite remind me of the public servant bureaucrats dominating many areas of our lives in those save, well-paid, pensionable, and super-secure jobs for life. Taking a decision, any decision, could cause them trouble. They are better off avoiding decision making. They ask themselves what could happen to them if they did something, perhaps something to push the boundaries a little, to introduce change where change is needed?

Whereas many of us believe that we need to do something to help where help is so badly needed.

Don’t stop. Just go.

Pádraig had a really nice evening in Egan’s Pub, an Irish pub serving the visitors of a golf course just a kilometre or two out of Tating, in the middle of Eiderstedt’s gorgeous countryside. They serve Guinness and Fritz-Kola (Hamburg’s answer to the famous American softdrink), and have and old-fashioned LOVE sign made from palettes on their grounds.

His car could just about handle the volume and weight of our luggage. We stopped over for a night in a country hotel and had a lovely dinner with family living close by. We didn’t need the ‘smokers’ table’ to meet, smoke, and talk – just some nice food and drinks. Rotterdam harbour has aspects of a fortress with high fences and a distinct police presence.

We had a table booked on board for a relaxed dinner which we finished early enough to experience the ferry leaving Rotterdam’s dystopian harbour. There is a distinct difference in the low level beds and Pádraig’s tall wheelchair which every year causes us less issues with the transfer as Pádraig and I are getting better collaborating on this short but complex transfer from wheelchair to bed and vice versa.

When Dublin came in sight and we disembarked, we soon got a taste of what the celebrations in Sheriff Street for Irish gold medal winner Kellie Harrington just a few days prior to our arrival must have felt like.

Pádraig started straight back in An Saol with a brilliant sitting and positioning session, supported via video conference by F.O.T.T. doyen Kay Coombes; a great hour with the UCD-based PhD student building highly innovative and creative switch access devices, connecting them to synthesisers; and his regular exercises with the brilliant staff at the An Saol Centre.

The prototypes of the special access devices use off-the shelf material originally meant for completely different purposes and include cut-off swimming noodles and musical trainer devices.

There are moments, when I have tried, tried again, and tried a third time – without success.

There are moments when people seem to be blind, deaf, and dumb.

When I hit my head against a wall; when I feel the pain and the hurt but keep going; when people look at me and surely wonder whether I’m a bit mad and even unreasonable.

When stopping seems to be the only, the obvious, and the sensible choice.

But think about it for a moment:

What would it mean for Pádraig and for others like him if I, if we, stopped?

What would become of my, of our, lives if we did?