“You can accept reality, or you can persist in your purpose until reality accepts you.”
Robert Brault

Have you ever been promised anything? Perhaps many times? Were the promises kept? Perhaps some?

Who kept their promises and who broke them?

Napoleon Bonaparte, reportedly, once said: “If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing”. It worked for him. Although not in the long run. Following his success, he died when he was only 51, out of power and exiled from France. 

Trump promised, according to US News, to launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out; end the green new scam and increasing oil and gas drilling; fire special counsel Jack Smith; end Russia’s war against Ukraine. Some of this, he promised, he would do before he would even have taken office, some within seconds of having taken office; but certainly all within the first 24 hours of having taken office. Promised! – Will he deliver?

We have the promise of politicians and the HSE to provide us with the means to start building the An Saol Foundation’s National Centre next year. – Will they deliver?

There are very concrete signs that reality is beginning to accept us. – Because we persist in our purpose and we deliver.

Last week, Pádraig discovered how lovely the newly renovated Café in Dunnes Stores in the Ilac Centre turned out.

We used to go there, especially during the winter months when it was too cold, too windy, and too dark to do much outside. The Café was alway nice. Now it is outstanding. And so are the people working there and the people frequenting it. They could not be more helpful.

I remember to have been more than apprehensive to go out with Pádraig when he had just left hospital. I know many families who still are apprehensive to go out with their injured family member, even after years following their injury. Not everybody is ok with attracting attention to, let’s say, the tricky situation they find themselves in. But there are good experiences. When it’s not pity. When it’s genuine help.

Could it be that a bit of the world is changing for the better?

Could it be that reality is beginning to accept us?

I’m nearly sure that you might prefer that not all promises ever made were kept.

However, I can tell you that one promise will be kept:

We will not accept a reality in which our injured family members are seen as a burden, as a bad investment for healthcare and support, or even just as an inconvenience. We will persist in our purpose until reality accepts us and all of our family. Nobody will ever be locked away out of sight, out of mind – just because they are different. Nobody.