Having just managed to get up this morning after a fantastic night out with KILA and Kaya in Vicar Street last night, Pádraig headed to his old school to say ‘thank you’ to the teachers, the students and the staff for their support, their help, their empathy and solidarity following his accident.

For me, it was one of the most moving and inspiring visits in a long time.

How would I have like to have gone to such a school!

Another night of complete exhaustion. Visit to and interview with Headway. Driving over to Pádraig’s former school. An Saol Board Meeting in the evening. I can’t keep my eye open and my hands freeze on the keyboard.

One of these days I will have slept enough to write something that makes a bit of sense.

Tonight is the night of “a picture says more than 100,000 words”.

Met someone working in the NRH who recognised Pádraig in Vicar Street. She came over to say ‘hello’ and ‘drop by to have a coffee one day’. How nice!

Good night!

Pádraig started to use his fancy new bed which had finally arrived a few days ago after a waiting time of untold length. It is really an incredible piece of ‘equipment’: so easy to use and so beneficial. Pádraig seems to like it too!

Today he stood in it having a drink of orange juice… holding his head up high without any support (except at the back). Gravity would have pushed it to the front but he held it up, for the first time! And what a first it was!

While he was standing he had an orange juice. Once I had put the cup in his hands, he moved it across the table and towards his chest, trying really hard to lift it up to his mouth. This last part didn’t work yet – but there is no doubt that it will some time soon.

Our friend working on An Saol the movie

My fancy new cycling “shorts”

A brilliant First: Pádraig holding his head up high!

Never thought this would fit:)

Earlier in the day, we went to see Ken, co-owner of the bike store Little Sports in Fairview who, together with Marin Cycles, are sponsoring the cycle to Cape Cod later in the month and a second cycle from Hollywood to Napa in October. Our camera man interviewed the owner of the shop who presented me with really ‘cool’ professional (and very tight fitting:) cycling shorts and ‘shirt’. There was a bit of a discussion whether this was going to fit me and, to be honest, I kept the shorts for a special fitting session:)

Thursday evening is a quiet time at Dublin airport. Hardly anyone to be seen when we left the plane and made our way to passport control. They just looked at us and asked “Everyone Irish?” I said “yes, just one is German” to which he answered “Not to worry, there’s always one” – and winked us through.

When we arrived home we saw that, finally, the standing bed.had arrived. I couldn’t belied my eyes. The therapist who checked the bed out this morning said to Pádraig that he was a trailblazer and that this bed was the first of many standing beds to come – and she was really really excited about the thought. This will really change a lot of people’s life. And she meant it.

Getting out of the train wasn’t easy this morning. Actually, getting all our stuff together to get out of the train was even more difficult. I was convinced that our bags, especially the small ones, had multiplied over night. There were just no more hooks anywhere to hang them, no more fingers to carry them.

Too many bags…

Arrival in Düsseldorf

The regional train to the Airport

On Pádraig’s first public transport trip

Yesterday evening was one of the nicest evenings for Pádraig, I think, when a couple of the young helpers spend a few hours with him talking and helping him with his food. Not everybody is religious, never mind up for a pilgrimage to Lourdes on a train with sick and injured people — they were and they really made such a difference not just to the trip but to how I see what’s going on in the world. Like Pádraig’s friends back home, these young people really make me feel good about things to come, because they are the future and they are going to make sure that it’s going to be good.

When we were standing on the platform and we said good-bye to all the people on the train, old and new friends, we really felt that this week was now over. It had been a very special week, pretty intense in many ways, loads of new unexpected and pleasant experiences, good conversations, tons of forward-looking positive thoughts.  This includes our really unexpected bath in Lourdes with one of our good friends, as well as the unexpected turning up of our broken bag for the third time (because some caring person had thought that we had ‘left it behind’ unintentionally – when we had tried to throw it out:).

We also realised that not only Pforzheim central rail station, but also its Dusseldorf sister station, don’t have trolleys anymore. We just about managed to carry everything from the platform where we had arrived to the platform from where the regional train was leaving for the airport. At the airport, we got a good day rate in a hotel and are just about getting ready to head for the check-in after a good rest.

There is a thoroughness and sense of duty here that doesn’t stop to amaze me. The ‘helpers’ had breakfast at 4 am this morning to allow them to have an early service at the Grotto before waking up those requiring their help at 5 am to have breakfast at 6.30 am followed by mass, shipping of all material and bags to the train, and making sure that all travellers would be on the train by 10:15 am. To everybody else, this would have been a full day’s work. For them it was just the start of the long journey back home.

A last look at the snow-capped Pyrenees

The Grotto this morning

The Basilica seen from the top floor of the Accueil

A last look back

Our ‘slow train’ at Lourdes’ TGV stop

Night on the train

Tonight, we’re on the train passing through France and Switzerland back to Germany, via Freiburg up along the Rhine Valley towards Cologne and Düsseldorf where we will catch a flight back home to Dublin tomorrow evening.

This time tomorrow night, we’ll be in Dublin after more than five weeks in Pforzheim and Lourdes. It’ll be different.

Yesterday was practice day, today we all did it: we went for the full bath in the holy water, the whole family (not all together:). We asked Pádraig a few times on different occasions before we brought him back to the ‘piscines’ and each time he said ‘yes’ he wanted to do this. It was freezing. And cleansing in a way. We were accompanied by one of our friends and carer who took a bath himself. I’d say its something that’ll stay in our memories for a good time.

Capturing the Irish in Lourdes

Get your photo on a candle with the Virgin

Pádraig holding his candle during last nights procession

Homeless in Lourdes at 6am this morning

Our group of injured and sick with their helpers

A really difficult thing today was a pretty long ceremony involving the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. It is supposed to give courage, hope and strength to get better – rather than falling into a state of despair, amongst other aspects of it.

However, the ‘tone’ of the ceremony and the focus on the suffering of the sick created an atmosphere where several sick and injured people just burst out into tears and couldn’t contain themselves any longer. Life is hard, difficult, and, at times, almost impossible to take. The sick and the injured become the victims that you have pity for. But how would anyone be able to live a life that the rest of the world looks down on in pity? Pity has a time and a place. And then everybody has to move on to the exciting, positive, and can-do outlook on life. Injury or not.

One really nice thing we did was having a walk along the river.

How different Lourdes looks and feels in nice, warm sunshine!

Today Pádraig met a few men from Armagh who did what you do a lot in Lourdes, they prayed. With him. In Irish.

The miracle of Lourdes for me, when I was here some decades (!) ago for the first time with my grandmother, was that you could have a bath in the holy water and didn’t have to dry yourself: the water just disappeared from my skin. Later I heard that this is something that is supposed to happen to everyone. Ok, it made it a bit less of a personal miracle, but I still thought that this was really something…

Last year, Pádraig didn’t go to the baths, the bath came to him. Two very strong gentlemen, with a bit of help by myself, put him on a stretcher, carried the stretcher to the bathroom, put the stretcher on top of a bathtub, and first washed Pádraig with ‘normal’ Lourdes water, before giving him a second ‘wash’ with the real thing: pretty cold spring water from the holy well. It was a bit scary and required a very special operation during which we managed not just to put the whole bathroom but the whole floor and corridor under water as we noticed too late that the water outlet in the floor of the bathroom was blocked…

Note: the pictures above are not ones I made.

This morning, Pádraig went to the ‘piscine’ and, with the help of almost a dozen very dedicated helpers from France, Italy, Germany, and Ireland took the ‘light’ version of the Lourdes baths. He didn’t quite go into the tub, but was covered in wet towels and water head to toe.

They prayed a Hail Mary with him and gave him time to pray for his special intentions. They prayed the Hail Mary in German, then in English and then came the highlight that made Pádraig really really happy. One of the men from Armagh offered to pray the Hail Mary with him in Irish.

Sé do bheatha, a Mhuire,
atá lán de ghrásta,
Tá an Tiarna leat.
Is beannaithe thú idir mná,
Agus is beannaithe toradh do bhroinne, Íosa.
A Naomh-Mhuire, a Mháthair Dé,
guigh orainn na peacaigh,
anois, agus ar uair ár mbáis.
Amen.

You should have seen the smile on his face. I don’t think he’ll ever forget the man from Armagh! Neither will I!

“Frohe Pfingsten”, Happy Pentecost, is something you say in German today but, as I learned, not in English. It’s the day of one of the famous international masses in Lourdes when everything is said and sung in ‘tongues’ – how appropriate for pentecost!

The Armagh group coming into the underground Basilica

Carriers for those who can’t walk

The yellow sticker on the candle doesn’t show the price but the weight of the candle

The main church

You have to admire how the church has moved on from doing everything in (universal) latin to using a dozen different languages in the one mass. With songs being sung in different languages, by the same singer and supported by an international choir. – Something, the ‘localisation’ industry (those adapting digital contents for diverse linguistic and cultural ‘markets’) could learn from a lot.

Click here to watch today’s International Mass. And check out how Pádraig was doing each time they show the choir, like on 55:05, on the bottom right corner.

Here is a short (not-so-good-quality) extract of the live broadcast:

There is ample opportunity here to take pictures of ‘holy’ things you’d never thought existed even in your wildest dreams. Like this water feature:

You could give out non-stop about the commercialisation of what is supposed to be a holy pilgrims’ place. But why would you? The choice is yours. No need to go into the shops if you don’t want to. Personally, I think they are entertaining and awe-inspiring in more than one way. There is stuff on sale there that leaves you speechless, like the mints made with holy water.

Given that everything here is run by volunteers (except the masses: priests are paid employees) it is really amazing how everything is running like clockwork. This morning there were probably more than 10,000 people at this mass in the Underground Basilica – there was no shouting, no pushing, no angry scenes. It should put those people’s arguments to rest who say that if you want to get things done, you need to pay people a fair and decent salary. Not necessarily.

Lourdes attracts good people. But it is a place that has left me confused. There are so many things here that “should not” exist anymore, things that remind me of times gone by, for a long time. And I really do not want, do not want to look back, at what was or could’ve been.

My head is spinning.

There is a story about a woman with disabilities who came here to Lourdes as part of a group with other disabled people. One of the other disabled persons got cured. After this, the woman at the centre of the story did not go to Lourdes anymore for years. Eventually, she returned. When she was asked why she had stopped going to Lourdes after the healing of he other woman she said that she got afraid that she might be healed herself – she did not feel that she was ready anymore for a life without ‘dis=ability’. – Makes you think and wonder.

There is this really old German joke (an oxymoron like ‘military intelligence’:) asking why you would never dispose of nuclear waste on Mars? – Because “Mars bringt verbrauchte Energie sofort zurück” (from a famous add campaign by the makers of Mars bars: ‘Mars instantly returns/restores used energy’). Today it was Pádraig’s turn to call their bluff with his first Mars bar in a long time. It worked and he liked it!

There is loads of energy around in Lourdes. Not just in the form of Mars bars. It’s a place that really wouldn’t leave you indifferent.

There was loads of rain today (again), so in a way we were all lucky that they big blessing ceremony took place in the huge underground cathedral. It was some event. Chief celebrant was the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady. For me, these almost over the top ceremonies are like time travel. They don’t seem to fit into our times anymore.

The underground cathedral got the biggest and most sophisticated dispenser of ‘holy smoke’ I’d ever seen. Good job there was a breeze blowing in the ‘right’ direction.

We found out today, that the huge golden crown on top of the main church was donated by Irish catholics. It’s the most distinguished and visible feature of the cathedral.

Pádraig will sleep in the Accueil, the hostel for the injuries and sick, without us for the second night. We have never left him with other people since he left the hospital, except for a few nights with his aunt, when Pat and I had to go to Boston for a few nights. We were very hesitant to do this here but nowhere in the world would you find more caring and reliable people than the one looking after those in need here. The level of trust we have developed with the people here is comforting: these are people you know will do anything in their power to help others because that is what they want to do, that is who they are, and that is how they see themselves. Their are no risk assessments, no forms to fill in, we haven’t exchanged one email with them, they have the greatest respect for Pádraig and for us. And I think that it must be great for Pádraig to fell and realise that he can be perfectly ok and safe even if we are not with him in the same room. One in Lourdes?