The only limit to our realisation of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
William Brewster

There were lots of doubts, those days almost 12 years ago. Back then, we were not sure at all whether there was going to be a tomorrow.

When I went back to Brewster on Cape Cod last week, it felt unreal. In a different way ‘unreal’ as it had felt back then, but unreal.

Was it really here that we spent the most terrible weeks of our lives? In this hospital, in this cafeteria where the organ donation team was waiting for us one day (we kept them waiting until they left), in this chapel with a book full of desperate prayers, in the ICU, and the ICU waiting room with its coffee machine supplying endless amounts of the dark, watery drink? The harbour where we walked around while they were cleaning Pádraig’s room and where, one very early morning, we decided to bring Pádraig home, no matter what?

And Brewster Main Street, Route 6A, where Mr Couto’s car hit Pádraig’s head just before he reached the now closed Bramble Inn on 2019 Main Street, recently taken over by the Spinnaker Restaurant, where he was working during that summer. The Brewster Police Station, whose officers were investigated by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office who were considering criminal proceedings against them. The plaque we put down into the ground at 1990 Main Street where the accident happened. And signs everywhere around Brewster urging drivers to ‘share the road’ with cyclists and to keep a minimum of 4ft of a distance from cyclists when overtaking – put up following Pádraig’s horrific accident.

That day, that accident, turned out to change not just Pádraig’s, our family’s, and his friends’ life – it changed the lives of all the people attending and benefitting from the An Saol Foundation he inspired, the organisation carrying the name and the logo he came up with when he started his podcast to promote the Irish language in the digital world.

We have a vision of tomorrow. Of a world where nobody with a brain injury will be written off, locked away in a care facility, and be told they aren’t worth the investment it would take to make life and living with their injuries possible.

The only doubts we have is the sincerity of the health and the political systems when they say that they will not leave anybody behind and that they will support our work.

That day in Brewster was devastating. Every day, I can nearly feel myself the hit on the back of my left head when Mr Couto’s truck hit Pádraig’s head with speed. It is as if I could feel my own head hitting the tarmac and going unconscious. Last week, I could see the accident happening on this narrow road were two cars can just about pass each other with absolutely no space for a cyclist coming in their way.

Mr Couto’s irresponsible, if not criminal, driving and the Brewster Police Department’s irresponsible, if not criminal, accident investigation we cannot change.

But it is up to us to accept our responsibility to help those who are still branded ‘hopeless cases’ to have the best possible quality of life, being part of society, not segregated, being with us, not put away in some care facility.