It is not because of setbacks that some do not reach the finishing line, but because of a lack of willpower and motivation.
Anon.

I got there. Though I wasn’t sure up until the previous day whether I should try it at all.

Once I had collected my starting number and the t-shirt, these doubts had to be put aside.

On the day, Santa was not the man with the long white beard but a woman in her thirties who was encouraged by her friends to hurry up because they wanted to go for a drink. There were more funny signs along the route. As I was running towards the finishing line from the back, there were also tons of empty plastic cups, hundreds of squeezed empty power gels, and dozens of banana skins on the way back to the big white television tower.

I can’t really say it was fun. It was hot. There was not a cloud to be seen on Hamburg’s blue sky. Although this was a standard marathon, I was convinced that it was a particularly long one.

When I finally had passed the finish line and a nice staff member positioned the medal around my neck, I asked them if I had won? The answer was, “everybody who makes it over the finish line is a winner!”

Yesterday morning, we went to the new Farmers’a Market in Ballymun, together with a few families from the An Saol Foundation Centre.

The brother and sister of one of the clients of the Centre were providing the entertainment, together with the fantastic Ballymun choir that had also performed at last year’s An Saol Foundation Adventfest.

It was a fantastic day out. The weather was good, the company brilliant, and the food outstanding.

The life our friends are living and the way they live it, is the opposite to what the health system had in store for them.

Their focus is firmly on the finish line.

They are going to make it on their way to a meaningful life in the company of their families and friends.

Like everybody else, they will encounter some setbacks on the way.

But unlike others, they have the willpower and the motivation to live their lives to the fullest.

They are Easter. We are Easter. We are full of hope. Full of Life. And we are on a mission to show the world that we are here to stay.