There’s this fella I know who found himself unwell some time back. Fairly unwell, actually, to the point that he was nearly a goner. And on one of those days when he felt the life draining out of himself and a strange calmness coming over him, he took a notepad and a dodgy old biro and started to write down the things he wanted to say to the people who loved him.
And for ten minutes he battled gamely with the rickety old plastic biro as he wrote down the things that he wanted to say to those who meant most to him, to tell them how he felt, to ask them how to remember him, to ask them how to treat each other after he was gone. He wrote about how he would have liked his life to be lived if he’d had the chance. And as he wrote this, a sheer exhaustion came overhim,becauseheknewhis time was limited, that he was unable to scratch along the note pad with the intensity he wanted, and that the biro would never hold out.
And when this realisation hit him, a great sadness came over him at the thought that soon he would be saying the last things he would ever say, that there’d never be a chance to come back from that.
And with the shuddering of the shoulders that followed his weak attempts to scratch something legible along that yellow notepad, he collapsed back into the pillow and stared at the wall for the ending that would surely come soon.
But it didn’t. Though he thought it might have several times, but a rustling of his limbs told him that it hadn’t.
And with every passing minute or realisation tha the was still alive, came extra strength and determination to get one more chance to say and do the things he most desperately wanted to say and do. That he may have the chance to reevaluate the things that were truly important to him, and not just the things he thought were important. He told me that if got the chance he would change his life and use that changed life to change the lives of others in a positive sense. He would eliminate the petty crap that he thought was meaningful and replace it with a heartfelt honesty.
And when I spoke to him last night, he was already facing into things with a new zest. He wasn’t going to let Christmas bother him to the extent it had before. “People can only eat one meal at a time,” he said. “There is no need to bankrupt yourself stockpiling enough food for a month underground. It is not hibernation, it is just a few days.”
He felt reenergised by the turning of the winter, the days getting longer, the nights getting shorter. So grab life by the short and curlies, reinvent yourself this year. Let Christmas be the fuelling of that drive. Absorb the message of the season and so all you can to keep it magical for the children because they are the carriers of the mystique of the season.
Don’t find yourself with just 10 minutes, a dodgy biro and a notepad to list your lifetime of wishes and messages. Say the things you have to say now, do the things you can do now; and next year start 2015 with the belief that you are a special person and that you can make a positive change in someone’s life. Let 2015 be your Year of Doing.
— In here, there is no rest for the wicked, as we endeavour to bring you your weekly paper weekly, so we will be published again next Tuesday Dec 30 with your last edition of the old year on your doorsteps, in the shops, and online.
On behalf of the management and staff of the Galway Advertiser and its sister newspapers around the country, we wish you a very happy and
fulfiling Christmas. We thank you for your loyalty and for allowing us the opportunity to inform, entertain, and, no doubt, occasionally infuriate you over the past year. We thank you too for your comments, both for and against our commitment to allow as many diverse voices as possible to be heard through our pages and on our increasingly popular Facebook and Twitter facilities. This spring the Galway Advertiser turns 45 in the business of connecting readers, stories, businesses. We love what we do and we look forward to next year and beyond and remaining Galway’s favourite and most widely read newspaper, online and offline.
Thar cheann an Galway Advertiser gach dea ghui? i gcomhair na Nollag agus na hathbhliana.
