When a Mother dies

When a mother dies

No obituary will appear in the paper

No headlines on national radio

No breaking news item

ticking across the TV

Because she wasn’t famous

Or a celeb

Or a star



But that doesn’t mean

she wasn’t important

or any less loved or missed



She will be headlines forever

in her family home

Her obituary written each day

in the words and memories spoken about her

Breaking hearts instead of breaking news

A celebrity shining out of the family photos



She was and still is everything to each person

who met her, knew her and loved her

She won’t be discarded with yesterday’s newspaper

or moved on with the arrival of the next big thing





She is eternal inside a private heart

Full of love

Raw with loss



Brenda Drumm

18 September 2013

On a day like today

On a day like today
When there's school uniforms to iron
Lunches to make
I'm not thinking about it coming back

On a day like today
when the washing machine has broken
and the kitchen is flooded
I'm not thinking about biopsies and blood tests

On a day like today
when there's grocery shopping to be put away
and dinner to be prepared
I'm not thinking about prognosis

On a day like today
when there's lego to be made
and birthday cake to be had
I'm not thinking about dying

On a day like today
Or any given day
I'm mostly not thinking about cancer

Ends

Copyright: Brenda Drumm 2013

Celebrating Jane Austen

A CELEBRATION OF JANE AUSTEN ON SUNDAY, 6TH OCTOBER

AT SALTERBRIDGE HOUSE, CAPPOQUIN, CO. WATERFORD

This year marks the 200th Anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice and Salterbridge House is an ideal place to celebrate Jane Austen. Set amidst beautiful grounds above the river Blackwater, it was built in 1750. Substantially altered in the 19th century, the house and oak panelled hall sets the scene for a feast of Jane Austen activities on Sunday, 6th October. Regency dress is optional, with a prize for the best dressed participant. Changing rooms will be available for those who wish to complete their toilette on arrival.

Dr. Sophia Hillan, author and lecturer on Irish literature will speak about "Cassandra's Star, Jane Austen's nieces in Ireland". This talk expands on her successful recent work: May, Lou and Cass, and brings new and exciting detail to the topic. Signed copies of this book will be available to buy on the day.

Our imaginative chefs have created an Austen inspired three course lunch for you to enjoy at your leisure.

In the afternoon Empire Line Productions present Ladies of Jane, Scenes and Musings from the Pen of Jane Austen. This theatrical delight is a must for all Jane Austen fans who will be treated to an unforgettable bouquet of amusing, tender and dramatic scenes from her much loved novels. Directed by Mary Curtin, starring Judy Donovan, Rachel O'Connell and Vanessa Hyde, Ladies of Jane is perfectly suited to performance in the gracious surroundings of the oak panelled hall.

Date: Sunday 6th October 10.30-4.30

Venue: Salterbridge House, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford:

10.30 am Coffee with a short talk about Salterbridge House

11.00 am Lecture Cassandra's Star : Jane Austen's nieces in Ireland

1.00 pm Luncheon in Salterbridge House Dining Room

2.45 pm Theatre Ladies of Jane, Scenes and Musings from the Pen of Jane

Austen

4.00 pm Afternoon Tea in the drawing room and Costume Parade & Judging

Full Day ticket( numbers strictly limited) EUR75 with all refreshments.

Lecture only /play only ticket EUR25 per session.

Booking: 058 54952/ 087 2030763 susiewingfield@hotmail.com

Susie Wingfield , Salterbridge, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford

Proceeds from this event are in aid of the Lismore Hall Restoration Fund. Cheques to: St. Carthage's Cathedral, Lismore Hall appeal.

Ends

After a while

After a while
you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't always promises

and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and and your eyes ahead with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers

And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong and you really do have worth and you learn and you learn

with every good-bye you learn.

Author: Veronica A. Shoffstall

Please Choose Life

I am a big fan of the radio and it's always on in the car tuned to local, regional or national stations. The choice of show depends on who is in the car with me, my mood and whether or not there is a breaking news story that I need to follow for my work as a Communications Officer.

This morning I was in the car by myself travelling to work in Maynooth so I happened to switch channel at 9am to see who was on and who is away on holidays - it can be hard to keep up, especially on the National stations.

I heard Miriam on the John Murray Show and heard her mention Donal Walsh so I stayed tuned in. I had just pulled into the car park in work when her interview with Donal Walsh's parents began.

Now if you don't know who Donal Walsh is, then you missed an opportunity to listen to and to learn from an amazing young man who sadly passed away recently. Donal Walsh, while living with terminal cancer, went on National TV to talk about his desire to simply live and to plead with young people who so often and so readily choose suicide - to STOP and to choose to live instead of choosing to die.

You would have wanted to have a heart of stone to be unmoved by this young man and his parents who so clearly loved the very ground he walked on.

Anyway back to Miriam this morning and her interview with Donal's parents. Miriam took them back through DOnal's life and what he was like as a baby and then up to the point where he was diagnosed with a tumour in his knee when he was just entering his teenage years and when all he wanted to do was to play sport.

The interview was sensitive and you got a real sense again of the boy who had just made the transition from boyhood to being a man. I felt at times like I was sitting at their kitchen table as they got bad news, followed by good news and then more bad news. I was almost there with them the day they got the awful news that there were no more treatment options for Donal.

I cried as I listened to a father who back then was trying to be strong and for whom it still took every ounce of his strength not to cry today on national radio. I found it particularly hard to listen to Elma, Donal's mother as she spoke of her son. I know what sons are to their mothers, especially Irish sons as I am Mum to a little boy of 8.

The last think Donal's mother said today as Miriam signed off the interview was that Donal will be waiting for her ....... Those words will stay with me forever.

Her faith is so strong. Her joy in the short life of her son was palpable today.

Donal's parents said that he has left them with a lot of work to do - he started something while he was in his final few months on earth that I hope will in some way help and encourage young people to choose life. In fact I hope it will encourage people of all ages to always choose life.

I am living with an incurable form of bone marrow cancer and I know it is hard for those who love me. As I listened to Donal's parents today I thought about how I am on the other side of where they are - they are parents mourning their son. I am scared every day that I will be the parent of children who are mourning me.

It's very hard - impossibly hard and overwhelming at times.  I get angry when I hear of another person who has died by suicide. I can't help it and you will have to forgive my anger at people who I know are sick and suffering too - people who are in despair and who can't see a way out. I do my best to understand and I know that there is a black hole and people often can't help but fall into it but I have fought every day since my diagnosis on 10 January 2007 to live, to survive and to squeeze every last drop I can from this life. It's hard for me to understand a senseless loss of someone by suicide.

I hope that Donal's life and the witness he gave in the short time he had on earth can make people sit up and actively choose life especially in a world which so often seems to be weighed on the side of the culture of death.

I hope that I can grow old surrounded by the people who love me and whom I love.

For Donal, for me, for all those fighting cancer and other life-threatening illnesses - please choose life! It's always worth it.

 Ends

PS Never underestimate the power of radio!

Happy Stem Cells Birthday to Me

This day six year's ago I was spending the first of two days in Saint James's Hospital in Dublin having my stem cells harvested as part of my treatment for Multiple Myeloma - a cancer of the blood/bone marrow. 

It was cutting edge to watch all the machines and the stem cells literally being sucked out of my blood as it was taken out and put back into my body through my central line. The care I received was fantastic and we had great fun despite me being sick with nerves and still a little sick from the chemo I had received the previous week. 

I was one of the lucky ones whose stem cells mobilised and were harvested. After two days on the machine they had harvested enough for not just one, but two stem cell transplants. 

The first of the stem cells in their little bag of life 

It was an extraordinary challenging and yet miraculous time for me and for my family. Each part of the treatment had its own side effects and problems but it was all well and truly worth it. 

I spend two weeks in hospital for the process of harvesting my stem cells and the second day of harvesting was on the Friday of the June bank holiday weekend. Even though I had been on the machines and had a very intensive day I persuaded them to send me home on the Friday evening - day two of the harvest - so as I could be around family for the long weekend.

On the trip from Saint James's Hospital back to Tallaght I was very woozy from the drugs and the effects of having my blood taken out and put back in so I said to the ambulance driver 'I would be a cheap date tonight - one drink and I would be singing' and he very quickly retorted 'what time will I pick you up at?'. It's funny what you remember from a day like that. 

Me and My Collected Stem Cells May 2007 

Here's to my wonderful stem cells which worked and which kicked cancer in the butt and here's to my stem cells waiting patiently for me in Saint James's should I need another transplant.

Onwards and upwards [well once I have today's hospital visit over]. LOL

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend and here's to health, the only wealth you ever need. 

Cherishing Childhood

Our childhood is what makes us who we are, and it’s also what sustains us when we enter into the sometimes crushing reality of adulthood. This world isn’t easy to live in. The monsters you once thought hid under the bed don’t hide anymore, they walk the streets, and they are every bit as frightening as when you lay huddled beneath the bedcovers at night after a bad dream.

When you grow up, you enter into a world of jobs and mortgages, a world of endless responsibility; a world that can gobble you right up if you let it. You learn that bad things do happen and that they happen every second of every day. As you grow up you begin to learn about the past, and the depravity of your own species through the ages. The boogie man comes knocking at your front door with a gun and a smile, and life stops being fair and becomes ugly.

It’s easy to get lost in the big bad world, which is why your childhood is so important. It lets you exist in a time where things are simpler, where you see the world through a keyhole and the grass is green right where you stand. You get to exist in a place where all the fairy tales are real, when you might still get your Hogwarts letter, where life is made of wonder and you don’t scare so easily.
But once you grow up the simple truth is that life can be hard, brutally hard, and you need somewhere to go, memories to sustain you when it feels like you’re being suffocated under the life you’ve made for yourself. You need to get be able to remember back to the days when you felt you could be anything in the world, from a princess to Pokémon Master. You have to be able to remember when the world was an idea, when the doors were opening instead of closing and when every crack and crevice was full of magic.

But sadly there are many people who had their childhood taken from them, whose lives have always been complicated. These people deserve to be given a chance to salvage their own childhood, and they can’t do it on their own. Those of us who had a happy childhood have to help them, have to allow them to enter into our world. Force them to watch every single Harry Potter movie and make them read the books you read when you were a kid. Bring them to the beach and make them build a sandcastle, give them the memories they never got to make.

The gift of a childhood is the greatest gift you can give another person, because within it lies the pathway to everything else, the basic understanding of love and the simplistic goodness that we all need to fall back on. We could all use a little childish logic now and then, giving things because it’s right, not because you want to look good, doing things without expecting anything in return.

Maybe your childhood wasn’t perfect, maybe your life has never stopped being complicated. Maybe your parents taught you things you wish you didn’t know. Regardless of the lot you were dealt as a child - as an adult, as a parent you have to be the one to teach your children what you wish you had been taught, and you must always be mindful of the millions of children in the world today who have no childhood because their world is consumed by war and poverty. Their world is broken, shattered, along with every dream they ever dared to dream.

English poet John Betjeman said, "Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows."

Cherish your children and give them a childhood worth remembering, because it’s the foundation that holds them up.
Children and young people reading this – you too must cherish and do your best to enjoy your childhood – you owe it to your adult self!

Emma Tobin
2013