A Magical Moment

The law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it simply changes state.

 “Hi Mom, are you doing anything today?” I enquired resting my coffee mug on the window sill. The brightness of this Sunday was welcome after a run of rainy dull days. I told her I’d call out to her shortly and hung up the phone.  Whilst dressing I peered into my wooden jewellery box and wondered what ear decorations I would wear for the day. I rummaged around and eventually plucked a very old pair of small diamond earrings that had once belonged to my late grandmother from West Cork. They’re not worn very often because they are extra special and fear of losing them keeps them hidden away.

 I hopped in to my car and made my way to my mother's house on the other side of town. The thing I’ve come to notice about my mother’s house is the energy that fills the house; the vibe there is usually fun, wise, calm and always comforting.  I love calling out to see her. The colours, the trees, the Buddhas, the prayer flags, the sparkly butterflies and bumblebees on the walls, the smell of home baked brown bread and incense all beckon me inside...


 Mom was sitting on the couch going through old photos. I sat down and zoned in. “Ah look at this one Liz,  down in Bandon, with your grandmother at Coolmaine Beach.” “God that’s a while back now, at least 30 years ago”- and as I took the photo in my hand, I showed her the earrings I had decided to wear just a few minutes previously.  The photo was old and blurry.  In the background my granny’s outline was visible but not her face, her white stylish hair tousled out of its normal elegant shape by the wild Atlantic gusts, beside her my mother her face slightly more in focus.  I was beside my mother, aged around nine and facing sideways out to sea. To the right foreground my younger brother Des, covered in sand and mud and staring straight at our baby brother Jack, the pet of the family, who was stood right in the centre of the picture. . Behind the lens was my late father who died in 2014.

 “I’d like to be by the sea today Mam”, I decided and after a little time spent faffing around the place we got into the car and off we went towards West Cork.  As we journeyed along the country roads my mother reminisced a little about her childhood spent around these parts. She recalled times spent going to the blacksmith with her father for a new shoe for the horse.  “I don’t recall grandad coming to the beach with us much,” I interrupted her but I did remember him asking us “How many swims did ye have today?”- “We had seven swims Granddad,” we’d reply wiping the dried sandy snot-encrusted ice cream from our faces. “Oh my god aren’t you great altogether!” he’d say and we’d all straddle his long legs trying to pull off his ENORMOUS green wellies.

 We parked up at the beach and got out of the car. The waft of sea air and seaweed woke us from the drive. The wind was incredibly wild. The candy floss clouds hung large and brilliant in a very blue sky. We walked and talked about life- and death.  I’d had some acupuncture done that week and it had raised my interest in human energy and its power. “Where does all that energy go when we die?”

My mother began to talk about her own mother’s death and the energy struggle she had in letting go. She suffered enormously, her poor thin body fighting furiously each step of the dying process. She told me about a dream she had had, not long after granny died. “She was standing right there with my father, your grandfather in the dream”,  and she pointed to old, now disused steps in front of us. “Nothing else happened in the dream, they simply stood there together smiling at me, wearing their Sunday best- a handsome couple” We stopped in the exact spot for a few seconds and looked out to the sea. The silvery line of the horizon made a starting point for the racing waves . A couple of hardy kite surfers battling fierce wind zipped through our view.  On we rambled around the highways and byways. Eventually we made our way back to the altogether tamer sanctuary of my car. 

 I was fixing myself in the rear view mirror, unravelling my scarf,  when I noticed granny’s earring missing from my left ear- “OH NO - shit!”  We searched the ground around the car but no luck. I made my way back to the beach to begin the search. I retraced my steps along the wide expanse of the sea shore, in between seaweed and rock pools. I held the remaining earring in my hand tightly as I walked along, head down. I climbed the steps  from the beach to the road again.  I walked along scouring where the grassy ditches met the old stony walls. I was slowly beginning to accept I’d never find it. My heart sank with the loss of it. It’s gone, it would be impossible to find it! I was annoyed with myself but I thought at least I lost it here, in her home place, and by the sea, where we’d all swam and laughed and spent such nice times together like in that old photo. Nearing the abandoned steps that Mammy had mentioned in her dream and after one more glance around I accepted defeat. Turning on my heel and taking a few strides to walk back I gave one last concentrated look to my left... and there...literally out of the corner of my eye... lay a beautiful small diamond earring on the ground shining up at me...

Quantum physics tells us that the world is made up of energy. It states that it and matter are interchangeable. Human bodies are composed of divine energy of the soul in the form of body, thought and spirit. We are like ecosystems- open and not closed and at any given moment some 20 watts of energy course through our bodies- enough to power a light bulb. We gain this energy through food and the resulting complex chemical processes and when we die that energy, according to the Law of Energy Conservation, is not gone, it doesn’t just disappear. Not one bit of you is gone in fact, you are just more scattered and less orderly. This is very beautiful to me. I’d like to believe that the light and energy of anyone that has left this world, someone whom we have loved so very much and then lost, from each and every corner of this sometimes incomprehensibly sad but unrelentingly magnificent world, will continue to echo throughout space until the end of time. I believe the departed, from the tiniest of babies to the oldest of men and every soul in between, are still with us in some way because they never really left.

Niall

“Among the few hundred people we regularly encounter not very many are likely to be the sorts of exceptional individuals who exhaust our imagination with their good qualities, who strengthen our soul and whose voices we want consciously to adopt to bolster our better impulses.” –Alain de Botton.

My cousin Niall visits us often and few are the visitors that bring as much unbridled laughter and joy when they call as he does. The same routine takes place, his supremely dedicated and heroic mother- my aunt Paula, usually drops Niall to Ballyvolane shopping centre from Cobh.  A greeting from this young man; you can be certain, will be like no other you’ll have received that day. When Niall greets you a smile emerges that has made its way up through his body from the tips of his toes and shines out his face, a bright sunshine yellow moment caught in time. The loving grip of his warm soft hands takes yours, a veritable glove of compassion and understanding, fit for each and every season in time. We pack his bags, his coat and his trusty guitar into the car and away we go. Seatbelts on, radio off, phones cast aside, time to chat and catch up. He usually begins by telling us about his day and the week that was. The stories are not out of the ordinary, the usual exchanges about work, life and people all tied together with a healthy dose of devilment and mischief from himself!  Naturally, it’s not always sunshine and smiles and with great honesty he relays his episodes of frustration and annoyances but he tries with some help not to linger on the negative and usually  he’ll cap off a little moan with a typical “ah shur, that’s life."

Niall has Downs Syndrome, by the way. Downs Syndrome is complex and cannot be defined absolutely in a piece of writing such as this (or any) but for the most part some of the symptoms of his Downs (as I see them) are as follows:

      Eyes that slant upwards: a constant reminder that this boy, now a man, looks up to; and helps us look up to something bigger, higher and more wondrous than ourselves, whatever that may be.

     Narrow eye openings: so that his gaze can focus in on your heart more closely, forgetting all external distractions, as he talks with you, never at you or your body shape or clothes or hair, just a little red beating heart peeping out through the blue tinted window of a perfect soul, trying to connect with yours.

 A face that may be flatter like a full enchanting moon that would stop you in your tracks on a late walk home,  pale but strong enough to light up the darkest of nights.

     A head that may be smaller: not enough space nor need for too much ego satisfying intellect inside this particular skull. Niall’s intelligence comes from his heart, mainly. It is the heart and not the mind that is the centre of his being.


      Broad feet with short toes: Niall treads lightly on the soils of this Earth. He once told me that he likes to wash the feet of others, he said it makes him feel ‘holy’ and ‘close to God-my real father.' And then hilariously before you can say ‘Luke Kelly’ he will be up on those just washed twinkle toes, beer in hand and dancing wildly to the sound of some mad Irish jig, leapin’ and a hoppin’ and a high kickin' at a rate that would make Michael Flatley dizzy.  Again, we all laugh, god the laughter, sometimes one of us has to leave the room with the height of hilarity, tummy clutching, I-can't- breathe- laughing and the singing and the dancing goes on. This time yesterday we were working or reading or watching TV or giving out about something or other…

***

Who knows where any of us truly comes from? We are made biologically by our parents, their love for each other and life’s longing for itself.  Love, lust, need, want and science all ready to create something in one particular perfect or imperfect moment.

On the last night of Niall’s visit as I stood with him and gently bathed his troublesome left eye; one swipe only from the inside corner outwards with a warm cotton pad, I was again reminded to see the world through the eyes of this blue eyed Cork boy; to feel the essence of his pure heart and  to realise he is one of the most precious and valued visitors to our home and to our universe. We love him like no other.