Tears Of Rage

We carried you in our arms on Independence Day, and now you’d throw us all aside and put us on our way. – Bob Dylan

The lyrics of Bob’s song Tears of Rage, first recorded in 1967, speak of profound love, betrayal, and the incomprehensible pain of watching someone suffer unjustly. They are a cry against a system that too often neglects the most vulnerable. Tears of Rage captures the sorrow and the urgency to ensure that every person, no matter how profoundly injured, has the right to a meaningful life.

Pádraig carries us and we carry him. He has an incredible trust in us that we do the right thing. While some might think, “What other choice has he got?”, I can tell you that he has.

Instead of giving up, he has not just continued to live his best possible life, he also has inspired the work of the An Saol Foundation. Throwing him, and hundreds like him, aside and put them on their way instead of doing everything in their power to bring Teach An Saol over the line would be a betrayal of the incredible trust he and so many others have placed in us. It would be ethically and morally unjustifiable. It would be a tragedy.

We have no time to loose.

The Delta Centre

We recently went to Carlow, just over an hour away from Dublin. Apart from the wonderful Waterlilies Cafe and Bakery run by Pádraig’s friend, Carlow is home to the incredible Delta Centre. They provide training, residential, respite, day and multi-sensory services to adults with learning disabilities. Pretty similar to what we want to achieve with An Saol. As in our case, it was set up by a family in response to a lack of services by our health system.

What they have achieved is truly breathtaking and their insight and support for our work is incredibly encouraging. Their sensory garden is spectacular and, by itself, worth a visit to Carlow.

Change Is Here

We stayed overnight and followed the advice of Carlow-based friends Pádraig made in the National Hyperbaric Centre, and had a fantastic dinner in Mimosa, again, by itself, worth a visit to Carlow. The food was exceptional, not as overpriced as in Dublin, and they could not have been more accommodating.

Groundbreaking

All this paired with some truly groundbreaking new tech support and prototypes for communication and entertainment, online meetings with a world-leading research group in Harvard, we experienced an alternative to the constant, endless-seeming discussions about the same topics the system still seems to find too challenging to grasp, a system whose culture will have to try harder to align better with the needs of the people it is supposed to serve.