Pádraig had a phase where he really really liked ‘smileys’. They were everywhere. And it was easy to find a birthday or a Christmas present for him.

Sometimes I think I’m only writing about the good things that are happening.

About how well Pádraig is doing. The improvements he’s making. The way he really tries so hard. The way he doesn’t let all those frustrating moments, when things don’t quite work out the way he would want them to work out, get into his way. About his incredible will-power to keep going in the toughest of all times for him. The ripples, or rather giant waves he’s creating from his hospital bed. Bringing people together who haven’t met for ages. Getting people to do things they never thought they were able to do. Creating and firming up friendships that will last forever. Having people opening up their hearts and show incredible solidarity and support.

Sometimes I wonder whether that is a good thing. Because life isn’t really like that. Good. At least not all the time. – So what to do when bad things happen?

On the other hand, some people believe that your mind and your attitude can change the way you are and the way you feel, as in: you feel good if you really want to, if you focus on the positive aspects of what is going on.

Pádraig has a quote pinned up on the wall of his room at home, it’s from a famous Irishman, who wasn’t always treated that well himself, who quotes Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Play About a Good Woman, first produced 22 February 1892 in London, as saying:

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Being German and all (although I’ve started to doubt that too:) being positive and joyful and funny doesn’t really come natural. But – I’ll keep thinking about this…. Germans are good at thinking.

Talking about good news: Pádraig today moved his head. By himself. Which is really good. Not just because every movement he initiates wilfully himself is absolutely brilliant, but also because head control is great for breathing too. The more the better. And the better he will manage without the tracheostomy. Which is the first of the three main things we would like to get rid of.

So it looks like as if the good news will keep coming.

PS: I went away with Maria for a couple of days. We came back tonight to a Hamburg covered in snow. It was really nice to have spent that time with her and I’m sure I won’t ever forget those days with her. I’m sure she won’t either:)

Have you ever done something that remembered you of another time? Maybe because there was a smell, a song, a place, or just some noise that brought you back to that other time.

Some people I know don’t want to do something that worked out really well again, just in case this time it wouldn’t. Other people I know are going for a repeat – if it worked out last time, if something was really nice, they say “let’s do it again”!

T. S. Eliot once wrote: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” – I don’t know about you, but I had to read this a few times… I suppose what it means is that whether something is a beginning or an end depends on your perspective.

Pádraig was good today. Trying hard. Really trying hard to breathe with the cannula capped. This evening, he got a ‘full’ pureed evening meal which he half-finished – not quite like himself yet, but getting there. He just needs to keep at it, right? Keep going, sailing down the stream, keep believing. That nothing is impossible.

The T.S. Eliot quote implies that whatever you do, it’s never possible to go back: you can neither fail nor succeed in repeating a great experience. Life has no repeats.

There are so many situations, moments, smells, songs, places that make me expect Pádraig to appear suddenly out of nowhere because he just belongs into this “setting”, he has always been in it. I want to go back to the good times and can’t.

It’s from the end that we have to start from. And to keep going. And to keep believing.

Today’s German Music Tip
Clueso, Gewinner
Ich geb’ nicht auf, gehst du mit mir, gehst du mit mir, mit auf uns zu!
What’s hot
Beginnings
What’s cold
Endings
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Mein lieber Scholli!

He has lost his way.

Cardinal Raymond Burke and Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput are quoted in the Christian Times that they believe he is not providing leadership.  The Australian Cardinal George Pell is raising the possibility that Francis might be a “false pope”.

This is a certainly a Pope with opinions. The kind that doesn’t go down that well with the establishment. – Look at these ailments he identified in the curia. I thought that either there must be loads of Irish Builder-Boomers in the curia, or powerful people in large institutions just can have a lot of traits in common.

Where would you find people who are being “rivals or boastful”, when “one’s appearance, the color of one’s vestments or honorific titles become the primary objective of life”? Or those suffering from ‘existential schizophrenia’, “losing contact with reality and concrete people”, “a sickness that academic degrees cannot fill”? Do you know people committing the ‘terrorism of gossip’? There are certainly loads of people around who “glorify one’s bosses”, who “court their superiors”, those who are “victims of careerism and opportunism”.

If you want to help people, take responsibility for their welfare, support a caring health system, then you cannot do this with people who have primarily either votes or money on their mind. It’s not a competition. It’s not about who is going to win at the cost of others.

Pádraig is continuing with his training. Regularly. Continuously. Getting better. Sitting up in the wheelchair, eating and drinking, breathing with a capped cannula, having a go on the viva la MOTOMed. And new ‘firsts’ at regular intervals. He is sailing down the stream on the Dreamboat, and he believes that things can change.

In the New Year, we will bring things together. People with integrity and an organisation with transparency, to offer persons with severe brain injuries adequate and affordable help and support.

I know that many of you will be part of this!

Do you know people who feel immortal, immune or indispensable? People who work too hard, who are becoming spiritually and mentally hardened? People who plan too much yet work without coordination, like an orchestra that produces noise? And have you come across people who have ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’?

To me, this sounds like the absolute perfect description of those bankers, builders, and property developers who ruined the country, well: in fact several countries, with the backing of their political masters. Those who defended “bare knuckles capitalism” when they were making an absolute fortune from a big bubble of hot air, and then introduced socialism for the rich when the deals went down by sharing out their debts with all of society, including you and me.

I cannot read this description of these ‘ailments’ often enough. It’s pure brilliance, I think.

The most brilliant thing about this description, however, is that it is part of the “15 Ailments of the Curia” referred to by Pope Francis in his Christmas Address this year.

Try to remember, when was it that you heard a Pope talk like this? I remember bishops, and bishops in Latin America especially, getting into big trouble with the Vatican (and the German Pope) for saying stuff like this some years ago. And now? Now, the Pope himself is from Latin America and is telling off the catholic churches’ officials. – Looks like there are interesting times to come!

Over Christmas, Pádraig was as good as he can get these days. I remember that we used to check his vital signs (heart beat, oxygen) on the monitor first thing when we came in, but not anymore. When he is in the wheelchair, we even disconnect him from all these wires altogether, without any hesitation. Physically, he’s great, he been getting so much better and stronger, and I am sure that this also is affecting his level of alertness.

But it is like training. Even if you have achieved a ‘personal best’, or a PB, like one of Pádraig’s ‘firsts’, you will have to work hard, and keep working hard, over quite some time, so that you repeat this PB again and again, until it becomes something that you then take for granted. You can never let go, you have to keep at it, every day. This is what is happening with Pádraig. He can drink. Next day, he tries again and this time it doesn’t work that well. But he keeps trying. Working through all of this frustration of failure. But he keeps trying and the next day it works again. And the next. And the following day he doesn’t take the water and the milk from a spoon but out of a cup.

All of this is like so many things in life. Good things don’t tend to fall into your lap. They are the result of hard, continuous, regular work

There was a great surprise today when a team of physios came in to work with Pádraig for a session. Something we hadn’t expected on the 2. Weihnachtstag – when staff is still on a skeleton level. It was brilliant.

Oh, I gave a copy of Amhrán do Phádraig and the Dreamboat yesterday to Udo Lindenberg 🙂

Christmas Mass in Germany is different. Well, at least in a catholic church in protestant Hamburg. We went for the 9 o’clock mass. You know the one you go to because you want to go early, before you stick the turkey into the oven and put the ham into the biggest pot and onto the fire to cook both for hours. It’s all about timing. Getting the turkey, the ham, the potatoes (boiled and roasted), sprouts and carrots and broccoli, getting it all ready at the same time. Although – that’s the easy part. Much more difficult is it to get all the people around the table all at the same time and not too long before the dinner is ready.

The organ playing was impressive, the priest’s singing was quite good (he sang everything, from hymns to the Our Father). This was the short early mass, before the Hochamt later on, so it just took over an hour. Half an eternity by Irish standards.

Instead of turkey and ham, we had a big breakfast and went to the hospital to join Pádraig. He has received so many cards and present that there ain’t enough tables to hold all the cards. Thank you to all, on behalf of Pádraig, who sent him great cards, great presents, and really really nice messages. You know the song Ronnie Drew sang about Spanish being the loving tongue (or something like it). Well, I think that Irish must be the loving tongue because many of the good wishes that Pádraig received were in Irish. It is brilliant to have such a bond and to be able to express it in such a beautiful language. It means 1000 times more than just ‘words’.

Pádraig continues to do well. There hasn’t been a dramatic jump in how he is. But there have been slow and steady improvements. He has been eating twice for (I think it must be at least close to) a week now, and not just stewed apple but mashed carrots and potatoes and, for the first time today, bananas. When we left him this evening, I was sad, as I always am when we leave him, but we knew that he is getting better.

He is the guy with the hat looking towards me 🙂

To celebrate Christmas, we went to have a drink in our favourite bar in our favourite hotel – and guess who we saw and talked to: Udo Lindenberg, you know him if you had a look at some of the music links in previous blogs. He looks great, is extremely polite, and moves and talks very much like the Udo Lindenberg you would see on stage. He is who he is. And I hope he’ll continue for a long time!

Check out the Interview (in German) with Udo im Atlantic, the Highlights of MTV Unplugged recorded here, or the song “Mein Ding” featuring the hotel.

Maria and I went down South. It sounds like a trip to the Rio Grande and the border to Mexico. In a way it was. After all, everything south of the river Elbe is foreign territory – at least that is what the people living north of the river say.

We left Hamburg towards the end of the day. Pádraig was in his wheelchair when we left and had eaten a full ‘Gläschen’ in record time: 45 minutes. He was managing ok on the capped tube, breathing in and out through his mouth. All of us were happy that he was doing ok. Doing ok. Was hat die Zeit mit uns gemacht?

I am staying with a really good friend tonight, one of the real ‘old’ ones, the night before Christmas Eve. I had planned to do this for the best part of the past year, and it never worked out. To be honest, I could have stayed up for the rest of the night to talk, about anything, no desire to sleep (sleep is over-rated anyways), no desire for it to end. We have known each other for a long long time. And the welcome, meeting his family, talking the night away, was just great. Was hat die Zeit mit uns gemacht?

Today’s German Music Tip
Udo Lindenberg, Was hat die Zeit mit uns gemacht? – Der Winter kommt, der erste Schnee der kommt…
What’s hot
Talk
What’s cold
Sleep
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Nu komm endlich ma zu Potte!

I was looking through pictures I took since the end of June of last year. There are hundreds of them. One of them would have been enough. One of those roller coaster rides would have been enough.

The fact that we are in Germany and Pádraig is getting the care he is getting is a privilege. But it is a scandal, too. He is separated from his friends and his sisters and family.

When we listen to Irish radio and television these days, we hear about so many people coming home for Christmas. One of the songs that’s always aired is ‘Driving home for Christmas’.

Pádraig is keeping well these days. Slow and steady progress with eating and the capped tracheostomy tube. A few hours in the wheel chair, a short few stroll in the wheelchair on the roof terrace.

There is a lonely plastic tree on the ward.

It almost looks like another one of those hundreds of pictures I should never have taken, when one of them would have been plenty. More than enough for a lifetime.

Think about it: what do the Dreamboat and today have in common?

Last night we didn’t manage to get into Lütt Mattens in Garding. It was Christmas Song night and it turned out to be so popular that by the time we arrived, it was so packed that there was no way to get in and sit down. Last night was also an extremely stormy and rainy night and we thought that there was no way that, today, we could go for our early morning walk on the beach of the North Sea.

This morning, though, was very different. It was one of the most beautiful Sunday mornings we have seen here during the autumn/winter months. The sun was rising, the sky was blue, the sea roared because of last night’s storm, but the wind had quietened down, and it was just gorgeous.

The point? Probably no need to explain…

Pádraig was keeping well. There is a whole lot of things that he is not able to do, like walking, controlling his body, or walking, giving out, arguing, going out, debating. But he understands what we are telling him. He can eat. He can drink in sips. He can communicate with us, saying yes and no to things, using his tongue. He can, sometimes, lift his arm. He can squeeze our hands. He can hang on to my hand when I left it up. He can let go. He can breathe. He can cough.

We were devastated. Then we were full of hope. Now we are living a new life. An Saol. With you, with his friends, never on our own.

At 23:03 (GMT) today, this year’s winter solstice will take place. From now on, we’ll have longer, brighter days. Good for sailing. Down the stream. On the Dreamboat!

Solstice.

Today’s German Music Tip
Chakuza, Dieser eine Song 
What’s hot
The gorgeous morning after a dark night
What’s cold
Dark nights
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Du alten Dussel!

Saturday. The last weekend before Christmas. This time last year, we had just moved in to the apartment close to the hospital. Smoke alarm testers arriving just after 7am; a ring at the door by the man from the Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft who had just passed by the house and had noted condensation on the window; building work going on in the apartment next door starting at 7am and never ending.

All this seems to be so far away.

In a month, we’ll be moving again. This time not into a ground floor apartment, but into the one on top of a newly built house – with a nice roof terrace of our own and, what’s even better, with a lift Pádraig will be able to use to go out for a walk, onto the street with other people, old and young, dogs, cars, traffic, noise – life.

Pádraig has been using the ‘cap’ every day for more than four, almost five hours. If he can manage that for some time and manages ok, we hope that it’ll be easier to remove the tracheostomy at some stage. We also went out onto the roof terrace. It’s a long walk pushing Pádraig down the corridor in his wheelchair, picking up the key at the nurses’ desk on the way, and out into the cold, quite dark, and windy Hamburg afternoons, afternoons that look and feel like nights. It’s great that Pádraig manages to sit in the wheelchair for many hours every day without any bother. Sitting out and moving around a bit must be so much better than lying in bed. It’s not just better for circulation, it must also bring some diversion to these long days in his room.

Today’s German Music Tip
Clueso, Du bleibst (Did I post this ‘tip’ before? I hope I didn’t:)
   Du willst mehr von der Welt seh’n, leb’ deinen Traum. 
What’s hot
Moving
What’s cold
Being stuck anywhere
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Jez höa mia abba ma gut zu, mein Freund!