Tag: support

On the 29th April last I wrote about Mike (not his real Name) in a post entitled “What would you do?” While I was sitting at the sea front reading my newspaper who should come along again but Mike.  Looking the worse for wear after a few days on the drink.  He stopped and we chatted for sometime.  Just general conversation about the weather, boxing and County Monaghan where Mike has family.  He had a very bad cut across his lower lip which looked pretty bad.  I was used to seen Mike with cuts and bruises as he would fall over while drunk or get into situations where others might pick on him and hit him.  But this looked a very serious cut, when I am asked what had happened and had he gone for treatment in Hospital.  Mike said that he attended hospital and had received treatment and some medication to take.  With that he produced two containers full of tables which I thought to myself these will not go well with alcohol if he takes too many at once? Mike told me that a good friend of his had slashed his lip with a knife because he was chatting to this person’s wife and they got jealous.  In his next sentence Mike said “you think he would have had the decency to sterilise the knife first” to which we both just laughed. We discussed for a short while longer about would he consider giving up the drink altogether, Mike said he enjoyed it too much to stop.  I said what about thinking that you might live a little longer.  Mike said that he felt he would like to enjoy life and have a short one.  Well it is Mike’s life and he is living it now the way he feels best.  Not that I would agree but who am I to judge? You have to respect his honesty, he could have said yes maybe next week I will give it up but for him why lie. If we are not honest with ourselves who can you be honest with in life?

Following a recent radio interview with Mr. Frank Crummey I purchased his book titled Crummey v Ireland. Frank Crummey is the man who in the late 1960’s as a guest on the Late Late Show told of the abuse within schools by Irish Christian Brother. Which lead to him loosing his job and getting abuse hurled at him in the street.  As we have all seen in recent years how true he was with his statements. A man of many different careers and never afraid to support and help those who needed it most.  I have heard many times the saying “if we all put our own troubles out on the table you would be quick to take your own back”. Frank says “All I want to do is to leave this world a little better for my being here” (Page 190). From what I have read you will leave after doing a great deal, not just a little. Great read and well done Frank we could all do with a little of the courage you have to make a difference in this world. There is always someone out there who needs your support, so who can YOU help today?

One never knows the challenges they will face until they come along.  Last week with all the confusion  related to air travel I had to make a decision to support some friends in their travel arrangements.  The two key issues were one friend was in Ireland trying to get to Romania for his sisters wedding on Saturday 24th April.  Three other friends were stranded in Romania trying to get home with no flights available. With all the uncertainty around not knowing when Airports would re-open, time was closing in on a decision to be made as to travel or not.  The only information we had was that our friends stranded in Romania, the earliest they were informed about the airline getting them on a flight was this coming Thursday (a week and half later).  On this side it was looking like Friday 24th April was the earliest airports would open by then it would be late to start to travel overland.  Several options were examined and finally at 5pm on Tuesday last we decided to drive across Europe.  The only way to approach this in ones mind was to look at it as an adventure and just enjoy the journey. Yes in the middle of our journey the airports started to open up but travel arrangements were still affected.  New options were looked at again like getting flights within mainland Europe so our journey would be shorter but given availability of seats and prices been quoted for air tickets, what could one do except continue as originally planned. The route before us was Wales, England, France, Belgium, Holland (a little part), Germany, Austria and Hungary.  After travelling through the day and night and taking turns in driving and sleeping, we reach Budapest on Thursday where we had agreed to meet.  Our friends had made a 17 hour train journey through Romania.  So I dropped off one friend and pick up three others.  The round trip was 4,5875 kilometres. The end result was our friends made it home and her only brother made her wedding.  We had some great support from others helping us to book the boat trips etc as we travelled. Lessons learnt when one is faced with decisions sometimes you just have to go for it and not waste too much time thinking about it, as someone has to call it, I am glad I did.  We made the journey fun and had some great laughs along the way.  I am sure we all got something from our travels, if not just a story to tell.