Author Archives: sarahfitzgerald1984

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About sarahfitzgerald1984

Hi there! My name is Sarah Fitzgerald. I'm a mother to a beautiful daughter and a wife. I've always loved writing and recently found the courage to start again. I'm nervous but excited and I hope I can create some interesting and thought-provoking posts here.

The Writing Process

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Hi all, my apologies for not blogging here for a long, long time but believe it or not, I have actually been busy writing! I’m half-way through a ‘Begin Your Novel’ course (the time to do this, I suspect, was three years ago) and hope to dive into finishing Rachel’s story with more clarity. Deborah, if you’re reading this, we said the beginning of May for a first draft, but looking at the work I need to do that won’t be happening – sorry!

One of the other things I’ve been working on is an article about why I chose to write and my writing process. It was a great opportunity to promote myself as a writer and it will be published in the Spring edition of The Irish Wheelchair Association’s SpokeOut.  While everything I put into the article is completely true, I did make some omissions to the realities of the writing process. Here’s what a typical day might look like

9am – Arrive at my desk. My diary is open in a deliberate attempt to get me writing straightaway, complete with a pen to encourage me to jot down things straightaway. Ignore said diary and open emails instead. It’s important to know what skills my cousin endorsed me for on LinkedIn. Ooh, writing… oh yes, right…

9.30am Open Word and start freewriting. It’s great to get the old juices flowing. I love writing, it’s awesome.

10am – I did not know that your one Sarah from Corrie, Tina-whatever-her-face is, actually went out with Ryan Thomas who plays Jason. Oh, and that vicar Billy is going out with your man Daniel – wow he’s gay?! Oh all right, this has nothing to do with my novel, oops

10.20am – Back to work.

11.15am – That dryer has been beeping for the last ten minutes. I must turn it off because it’s wrecking my head.

11.30am: [ding] Who’s messaging me? Oh, it’s Ken from college. Writing back to him surely counts as work, him being a published writer and all. He’s sharing his knowledge. It’s imperative I don’t ignore him.

11.45am: 500 words written. Of pure and utter waffle! This is embarrassing, I’ve been working since half nine!

12.00pm: I’ve spend the last fifteen minutes rocking back and forth in my office chair, trying to calm myself down. But I feel I’m failing as a writer, and failing at life. Who did I think I was,  trying to be the next Margaret Atwood? I wonder did she ever feel like this. I’m going to quickly google and find out

12.15pm: Nope, probably not. I mean, look at all the books she’s written. Bet she didn’t spend all her time googling all her favourite authors. You know what? This internet’s nothing but a bloody distraction. I’m going to disconnect altogether.

12.55pm: 300 more words. Not bad if you omit the fact that I’m supposed to have my novel finished by the end of May. I feel sad. Cue more chocolate.

1.05pm: Nooooo, what is my laptop doing? Updates?! I don’t remember agreeing to this time. ‘Preparing to configure: 3%’. Why are you doing this to me?

1.45pm: Alison will be home in fifteen minutes but thank God the bloody laptop has finished updating itself, though what difference it makes I don’t know….. Oh no… no no no…my work, where is it? I’m opening Word but not seeing it… Recover unsaved files… no, that’s not it… agh! [enter string of expletives here]

2pm: Make note in my diary to write blog about my crappy day’s work, but maybe wait until I find it funny.

Of course, not every day is like this (if it were I wouldn’t bother writing at all) and if I had my wish, I’d be more organised and productive.

Then again, I’d also love to move to Australia, but that mightn’t happen anytime soon either.

 

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Birth Day (Poem)

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At eight minutes to midday,
On a sterile, cold operating table
Happiness was born.
She weighed eight pounds four ounces.
She was strong,
But her mother was saggy, deflated.
My breasts throbbed with the heaviness of milk
Ready for the taking.
They sewed me back together,
But alas, they knew
They couldn’t fix me.


I curled around my newborn cherub
Like a lizard around her precious eggs,
Sneaking peeks at the round blue eyes
And the perfectly pink skin.

Nothing made me so frightened
Than my beautiful, breakable china doll.
I’d broken so many cups, glasses, plates –
But this was something that really mattered.
How I wished I could bubble-wrap you,
Shield you from my imperfections,
Preserve you as you were.

And all that time spent worrying –
Baby talk and weaning all a blur –
And for what? To prove myself? Ha!
All that matters is that you love me
And that I truly believe I am good enough.

Worthy of the princess
Whose hand feels so soft on my cheek,
Who strokes my eyebrow when she is worried,
Who pulls me so close after her bedtime story
That our breaths fuse in the half-darkness

I know people watch us, comment and stare
And shake their heads, but honestly, my darling
I don’t care.

They tried to destroy what we had and now
I say no more, enough.
I wasn’t put on earth to prove them wrong
But rather to love you,
And as every year goes by, be assured
That I love you more than life itself,
Than all the stars and oceans,
Even more than chocolate.

Cripple for sale (Dramatic Monologue)

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Hi folks/legions of loyal followers/Dad(!)

I wrote this monologue just before Christmas. It’s called ‘Cripple for Sale’. The rationale behind this monologue is that in Ireland, disabled people are afforded neither rights nor dignity owing to our government’s failure to make significant investment into Personal Assistant Services. The HSE has pledged money for home help and home care services in 2018, but it’s unclear whether there’s been any extra investment into Personal Assistant Services.

Many of us, including myself, want to be seen as equal in Irish society. Paradoxically, however, we need certain supports – human, technological, accessibility and financial (to name a few) in order for this to happen. Sometimes I find, as a person with a disability, that it works against you if you portray  yourself to be too ‘capable’ or ‘able’ as the powers that be don’t take a holistic approach to service provision and instead provide services based on absolute ‘need’. Consequently, people with disabilities are becoming institutionalised in their own homes and failing to reach their true potentials.

Every October, come budget day, the Center for Independent Living and the Irish Wheelchair Association make ‘Pre-Budget Submissions’ outlining why substantial investment is needed in the disability sector. We are at higher risk of poverty owing to being stuck in a benefit trap. The Disability Allowance is means tested and doesn’t take into account the extra costs of having a disability – the cost of equipment, extra heating, durable shoes, pre-prepared veg – little things that make a huge difference in the lives of many.

We don’t want to be charity cases. As I said before, charity is too unreliable. We need our human rights to be protected. And with rumours that the ratification of the UN Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities has been postponed until 2019, disabled people remain dependent on the goodwill of the State.

Anyway, here’s my monologue ‘Cripple for Sale’. Enjoy!

 

A young woman sits in a wheelchair with a tartan blanket on her lap, shaking a bucket.

Cripple for sale! Cripple for sale!

A cripple’s soul is for sale!

I ain’t too fussy about the price; any old coppers will do!

Come on now, dig deep, it’s for a good cause!

Hey you – yes, you- oi – ! walking with your head down

Avoiding eye contact with me –

What do you think will happen if you look at me?

Do you think I will try and manipulate you with my sad eyes,

Remind you that it could be you sitting here

Catching trails of your own saliva on the back of your hand

Hands and legs jerking like a woman – possessed!

What’s that you say…? … you’re frightened? Frightened of me…?

How the hell do you think I feel?

I’m sitting here naked, cut open, on full display

Every spasm, every jerk, every bloomin’ thing I have offered up in some sacrifice…

…oh, I’m sorry, have I made you uncomfortable? Oh dear!

I didn’t mean to… that’s why I thought it best to sit in this wheelchair… even though I can walk…

Well, you may not call it walking… I suppose it’s more… ambling…crawling on foot…stumbling one foot after another…

Something like that ‘freaky’ creature in Lord of the Rings…

A cripple falling over would not be a good look

…but I’m sorry, I haven’t tried hard enough…

Maybe if I had spent more time doing that physio like you said… or if I had gone for that life-changing operation when I was six… Maybe if I had been a good little girl and done what I was told I wouldn’t be sitting here, in the freezing cold…

In a country where the only right I have is the right to be a defensive little cripple… alive only for the mercy of this wonderful, merciful government…

Oh, sorry I’m moaning again! aren’t I so lucky to be so far removed from that barbaric regime that defined Nazi Germany… that story that everyone knows and no-one talks about –

a place where cripples went in to be rehabilitated and came out…

Well…

What am I talking about now?

We don’t want to be upsetting people… after all…

Things are so much different now, aren’t they…?

…aren’t they?

People like me are even allowed out now… well… of course a couple of minor preparations need to be made…

You need to pass that pesky risk assessment, you know, the one that determines whether you’re at risk of falling, or choking, or drawing attention to yourself by being your wobbly self – phew!

…but yes, we are so much more free now, I mean, can you actually imagine how depressing it would be to be holed away in some ancient grey-bricked hospital, living life like a well-programmed robot, so well trained that it never occurred to you to feel unhappy… or to feel anything…

Oh of course I feel, but not what you want me to feel…

I suppose you want me to feel lucky and grateful

That you took the five seconds out of your day to throw the loose change from the bottom of your handbag into my bucket

To help the cripples have a better life

So you can go home to your family and tell them that you’ve made a difference to ‘those people’ –

You’re definite about this – we’re the same really (but not quite)

You want to help me, but you want to keep me at arms’ length – lest I infect you with my imperfections

Don’t think I haven’t noticed that disinfectant gel you keep in your handbag

To protect yourself from those ‘cripple germs’ –

And I suppose me being offended is a complete waste of time –

Just like us both pretending that you’ll ever really see me as your equal…

You haven’t really been listening, have you…?

So I suppose there’s only one thing I can do…

CRIPPLE FOR SALE!

Any old coppers will do.

 

 

What’s the Story?

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My Left Foot was on RTE 2 on Saturday night. I know it well because it was one of the ‘comparative’ texts I studied for my Leaving Cert (the film, not the book). Of course, me being me, I’ve read the book as well and it seems to be the voice of a man who very much came from an era where disability and impairment were problematic (okay, let’s face it, that’s every era – nothing’s changed there). Christy Brown is regarded as one of the most talented Irish writers of the twentieth century, and his name has become synonymous with triumph over adversity, literary genius, truly inspirational. And as a writer with Cerebral Palsy myself, I reflected on what it’s like to live in the shadow of such genius, and such brutal and cold oppression such as that endured by Brown.

If I had been born thirty years before, would I too have been relegated to watching life pass me by from under the stairs?

I’m constantly being told that I should consider  writing an autobiography, as Christy says ‘my own story’, and although I’m sure that every writer toys with the idea at one stage or another, part of me can’t see anything particularly extraordinary about my life. Unlike Christy Brown I was mainstreamed, and was very much a part of ordinary family life. I went to school, where I detested homework, and then to secondary school and college. I was always convinced that this was the status quo for other disabled people too, in spite of the fact that there were only two other students with physical disabilities in my school. (I say physical because there are also hidden disabilities like dyslexia, etc.)

Sixty years on from the publication of My Left Foot, I know that there are hundreds of autobiographies written by people with disabilities. In my home town alone, two men with Cerebral Palsy have published their own stories – Brendan Brophy wrote On Three Wheels and Dealing a Bad Hand and David Boland wrote Life from the Tip of My Tongue. Their style is different from Christy Brown’s, although some experiences are the same such as being in the CRC. My good friend Leigh Gath is currently extending her autobiography Don’t Tell Me I Can’t, the s\tory of her incredible journey as a thalidomide survivor (she has hands and feet, but not arms and legs) growing up in Newry during the Troubles, finding her identity as a sexual being and escaping from her alcoholic husband to finally find true love.

The progression of the perception of disability between My Left Foot and Don’t Tell Me I Can’t is intriguing. In My Left Foot Christy is preoccupied with his physical limitations and the now outdated terms he uses to describe himself, such as ‘cripple’ and ‘handicap’ whereas having been born thirty(?) years later, Leigh has a different perspective. Despite her specialised education at boarding school, she can clearly see from a young age that she is not the ‘problem’ but rather she lives in a society that won’t accommodate her needs. This frustration led her to become involved in disability activism and hard-core protests in trying to secure the rights of people with disabilities. It’s interesting to note that Leigh grew up in Newry, a community divided into Catholic and Protestants, while also inhabiting a world that endeavoured to reinforce the differences between disabled and non-disabled people.

Christy Brown’s perception of disability is now a little outdated. But one thing he must be credited for is that he gave permission to the disability community of Ireland (and the wider world) to tell their stories. Unfortunately at present we live in a world where these stories often exist in isolation. Christy Brown’s book may have garnered him worldwide recognition, but the rest of us face a new challenge. Disability has become so commonplace and integration is supposedly the status quo to the extent where, in the future,  writing your story from the perspective of having a disability won’t be enough to gain you credibility or respect.

Instead, it will be up to us as the future Christy Browns to push the message that disabled people in themselves are not problematic. It is society that disables, society that insists that we are different. A disability or impairment can never be overcome, but obstacles created by our society can be removed, if we put our minds to it.

And though I admit that I also am a sucker for a good old ‘triumph over adversity’ story, wouldn’t it be simultaneously strange and wonderful if we had more stories like: ‘Wobbly Yummy Mummy had no problems accessing mainstream school, or going to college, or accessing transport. She lived an average life with her husband and her kid. She sold a billion copies of her bestselling novel. The End.’

Okay, that’s a little boring. A little ordinary, even. But a good writer will always find the extraordinary in everyday life, if he or she is willing to look hard enough for it. My hope is that in the future, disabled  people will be perceived, and have the courage to portray themselves as the multi-faceted, complicated creatures we are.

And undoubtedly My Left Foot, both the book and the film version will be studied for decades to come, and my hope is that students will exclaim, ‘How could Irish society exclude Christy Brown and other disabled people for so long? Thank God Ireland ratified the UNCRPD!’*

*We haven’t, as of 23rd January 2018. The Minister of State with responsibility for Disability promised it would be ratified by the end of January. Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

 

 

Fitting in

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It might surprise those who  know me to learn that despite my passionate way with words, I once was seriously lacking in self-confidence.

I have always been integrated into a mainstream environment. When I started attending primary school in 1989, nearly thirty years ago, integrating students with disabilities into mainstream classes was certainly not the norm. it didn’t take me long to work out that I was the ‘other’, an undesirable, almost an example of what could go horribly wrong in life. By the time I was eight I always felt a hint  of self-loathing in the background, a sense of shame, responsibility. I must have done something pretty abhorrent to deserve such rejection, such isolation by my peers. I couldn’t be trusted to do PE, to play out in the yard. By the time I reached secondary school I was something of a pariah. I cycled to school on a red, then blue, tricycle. I had a laptop. I walked from class to class like I was drunk.

The only time I ever got closed to being kissed (‘shifted’ as we say in the Midlands) was in third year and a young lad asked me, stating that it was part of a dare. I declined as the boys fell about laughing. When I told my friend, she said I should’ve gone for it as I was sixteen and at that stage, had had no encounters, romantic or otherwise. After all, it was the best I could do, the best I could hope for. For a long time I accepted this as the status quo. (My husband was my first and only kiss- isn’t he  lucky?)

I was the geek in school – the brainbox. The world of the average teenager was one I didn’t fit into.

At fourteen, until my early twenties, I instigated a war with my stupid spastic body. While the girls in my class were wearing jeans, tight-fitting tops, hipsters and belly-tops, I was wearing baggy combats and my mum’s old t-shirts. I didn’t own a single dress or a skirt because I didn’t see the point. The girls in my class were ‘sexy’ whereas I had nobblity knees, ever-jumping arms and a screwed-up mouth. Ironically, the only thing that I liked about myself was my brain (which is ironically damaged!), my mental ability.

In fifth year, I decided that I needed to define myself as someone other than the class cripple, the tokenistic inspirational figure. In a world where I would never fit in, I  had to be good at something. Around the same time, I started exercising more and I lost weight. I was delighted with myself. I started eating less. I was finally the clever, skinny girl in class. I had a small group of friends. I almost felt beautiful, normal.

It didn’t matter that my own ribs ripped into my skin when I lay down at night.

It didn’t matter that I stayed up till twelve at night learning Irish poems while my parents pleaded with me to stop. ‘This shit is not the end of the world,’ my father would say as I looked at him from my books, panda-eyed, my brain melted. And I could never find the words to explain to him how much I needed to do this, that unless I conformed that I wouldn’t be worth anything, not only in the eyes of others, but in my own eyes.

In 1999, I went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes with the Irish Handicapped Children’s Pilgrimage Trust, and I remember vividly seeing the seven abandoned crutches hanging by the grotto, left by those who had apparently been cured. Did I want to be cured? I was asked before I flew out, by various people. Cured of what? My mum retorted when I told her. She’d always been adamant  that I was fine the way I was. Okay, I lie: she wished that I wasn’t such a huffy teenager and that I took the initiative to clean up  now and then, but in terms of my disability, she was pretty accepting. And it was only after I’d been to Lourdes (and came back my same old spastic self) that I started to question not only how I was perceived but how disability in general was perceived.

After all, didn’t Jesus cure the cripples and the lepers? When I was say, communion age, I don’t remember cripples being mentioned in religion class and I wonder now whether that was a deliberate action taken by the teachers, to avoid awkward questions. But I knew from going to Mass that Jesus cured cripples – the blind, the lame. In my teens I had many an elderly lady come up to me, unapologetically invade my personal space and say, ‘I’ll keep praying for you,’ when ironically their lives were probably much crappier than  mine. Hell, in my twenties I went to Mass in Emo one evening and the priest actually apologised to me afterwards for reading a gospel about curing the cripples!

Disability is unsexy, disability is undesirable. This is the mantra we crips are taught, from cradle to grave. We exist only to remind others that they are lucky, that they somehow dodged a bullet in being ‘normal’. I’ve actually heard people I know and love saying ‘God, if I were to be diagnosed with xyz disability, I think I’d kill myself.’ We are amazing simply in being. But of course the majority of us crips hate this patronising bulls**t. Unfortunately we live in a world where we are expected to conform, to fit in. Look at all the women’s fashion magazines. You’ll never see a size fourteen in any of them (is it true that fourteen is considered a ‘plus’ size?) and rarely will you find a disabled model.

With no strong disabled role models until my mid-twenties, I spent the majority of my life second-guessing myself. I went to a secondary school that had an upstairs and never questioned why it had no lift. I wore high heels to my grad and didn’t understand why I couldn’t walk in them! I chided myself for getting tired even though I know I use more energy than others doing menial shite. To slow down, take it easy, makes you weak, not quite as capable. Even now I cannot shake that mantra completely.

Despite the fact that disabled people are shouting loud, demanding their rights (your end of January deadline for having the UNCRPD ratified quickly looms, Mr Finian McGrath), there’s still an uncomfortable undercurrent, an unspoken consensus that we  should strive to eradicate impairment in all its forms. Hitler had ideas on how to achieve this (gas chambers) which is a shameful part of our history. But his ideals are far from relegated to the past. I read an article published just last week about how Pakistan is promoting the use of drugs and technology with the aim of ‘eradicating disability by 2025’. (Why such a specific timeline?) In the same article it’s reported that Pakistan has done little to further human rights of people with disabilities in the country. I can’t be the only one who is frightened by this.

One such piece of technology which is increasing in popularity is the eksoskeleton, more commonly known as robotic legs. I read in the local rag the other day that a local man has recently acquired one and highly recommends it. And I am trying to see the positives too. There’s great benefit in exercise with the aid of an ekoskeleton, particularly for those paralysed from the waist down. What makes me uncomfortable is  that it pushes wheelchair users further down a hierarchy, reinforcing the idea that to be physically disabled is far from desirable. For those of us who have struggled on our road to self-acceptance, it reminds us that we are ‘Other’ and that we live in a society more preoccupied with making sure people fit in rather than committing to constantly strive to make our world more accessible. Not forgetting, of course, that we need to be inclusive of people with visual, hearing, intellectual and emotional impairments as well.

I only hope that in ten years’ time, when my own daughter is in her mid-teens, that there aren’t hordes of insecure disabled teens across the country, doubting their proper place  in the world as I once did.

And if I could give them one piece of advice, it would be this:

Stop trying to conform for the wrong reasons, and make sure you stand out for the right ones.

Aussie Dreams

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Finally, after losing a whole day of your life,
You are hovering over the fair green isle –
Squares and squares of different shades of green –
From up here you could tell where the grass is greener.
It’s so beautiful. You’ve never really noticed it before.
As the wheels bounce off the runway you tell yourself you will appreciate every second.
A second might not seem long, but sometimes it’s forever –
Before, each second dragged as the Aussie dream refused to come nearer,
And now seconds fly as your family live on in your absence.

 You’re prepared for how bloody cold it will be –
Hats and scarves at the ready –
Isn’t that why you left in the first place – because of the bitter cold?
You’d be forgiven for being bitter
For being fed the lie
That having a good Leaving Cert was the key to a good future
And that your performance would define you for the rest of your life.
As you walk through the airport, shocked at the Irish signs,
You’re also shocked to see your childhood neighbour sauntering beside you in Customs.
Ah, we Irish stick together, even in flight,
Showing solidarity in escaping a life of misery and monotony.

 And now, back in your hometown
You feel like a celebrity
Being stopped in your tracks by those you went to school with,
Worked with for a while,
got drunk with every Saturday night.
It always was the same old  story –
And for some, the tale remains the same.
Giddy with excitement and faint disappointment,
You hardly can decide what to do first.
You stuff yourself with Tayto and Barry’s tea,
The familiar tastes leaving an odd cramp in your stomach. 

Feeling the joy of seeing your loved ones,
You wonder why every day can’t be like this,
But no-one bothers to tell you that
You’ve forgotten to take off your rose-tinted glasses.
Behind the smiles and the warm embraces
Everything is the same as it ever was, and will ever be –

Those who love you have continued to do so in your absence
But your fair country refuses to drag itself out of depression
Like a feisty school kid is pulled out of bed on a frosty morning.
Rent in Perth and Tullamore are nearly on a par,
And the streets are lined with people who are ‘wealthy’
But can barely afford to live.
Old Tom still drinks in the same pub on a Thursday night,
And those who stayed behind in pursuit of their pot of gold
Ended up with a bucket of coal.

And when they ask whether you’d come back,
You purse your lips and smile and say simply: ‘Some day.’
Some day when Ireland becomes sexy and alluring
And rewards young people for a good day’s work.
Some day when you’re allowed to have big dreams
And not clipped around the ear for ‘having notions’.
Some day when having fun is not tied up with being obliterated.
When being ‘home’ makes your heart soar higher than being away.

But that day is not today.

And so your heart breaks as you stuff your life back into your suitcase,
Trying to ignore the glistening tears
Falling from the eyes around you.
And knowing that it’s the right thing to do
Makes goodbye ever slightly easier on everyone.
‘Sure we’ll see each other again, and sure can’t you come over?
You’ll be sick of me Skyping you – sure you won’t miss me at all!’
And other such little comforts.

 And as the green plane takes off into the darkness
Searching once more for the light
You’re proud of what you’ve accomplished
And that you were brave enough
To leave behind this little island
In search of something spectacular –
And not to worry, dear – dreary, dependable old Ireland
Will be the very same when you get back again –
But somehow, you’ll have changed-
All grown up, and just a little bit wiser.

 

 

New Year, Same Me?

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So it’s the end of another year and I’m absolutely exhausted (though that is due in part to the fact that I’ve been fighting the dreaded lurgy for the entire Christmas. Evil, personified – seriously)

I know it sounds a little conceited but I’m sort of proud of my writing performance this year. Okay, so my novel isn’t finished yet but I know I will get there at some stage. I’ve written loads this year. Not just my blog, but short stories, articles and poems and monologues. You can see most of them on this website, and to be fair, I’m proud of them.

The problem is, there’s also lots of things I’ve written for publication that no-one’s seen because I don’t have the courage to show anyone. Sometimes I don’t show people because I don’t want to cause offence. Other times I don’t want to be told that my work is crap and I’ve no business calling myself a writer.

So this year, instead of making the same usual promises of going on a diet, promising to exercise more and all the other lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, I am going to endeavour to write more, and actually show people what I write. I’m going to send more proposals, set myself up for the world of rejection. Stop protecting myself. I’m also going to  be more true to how I feel and stop holding back in my writing.

I can’t wait to get started. In 2018, obviously. No point in overdoing it either.

 

(As an aside I’d like to thank my fellow By Us With Us team for allowing me to be part of such a unique event. It changed my life and gave me new hope for the future)

 

The Befriender

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The Befriender.

 

Daniel was browned off, and rightly so. Here he was, at almost twenty years old, being manipulated by his mother. True, he had reason to be grateful: she could’ve gone to the gardai, and she didn’t. God knows, it had never made much difference before. He smiled as he remembered their neighbour, Sergeant Larry Byrne, coming down to have a ‘friendly chat’ with him, which amounted to ‘ah son, you don’t want to be hanging around with those hooligans now, do you?’ His words had seemed hollow from a man who had an extensive collection of pirated DVDs, confiscated from the Sunday morning Clara market.

I don’t know how she found out anyway, he thought as he pulled on his bootleg cut dark blue Jack-and-Jones jeans. That’s the problem with living somewhere as small as Clara: everyone knew everyone else’s business. He couldn’t even remember where he’d heard that his fourteen year old neighbour Tina Cullen was pregnant, or that Robbie Mills from The Green got done for growing weed in his room. The cornerstones of any tight-knit community, he thought with a pursed smile: sex and drugs. Minus the rock and roll though; there was rarely anything exciting going on. If he could afford it, he’d be out getting mouldy in the Bridge House in Tullamore every weekend. And he certainly wouldn’t be living with his mother.

‘Get down here now!’ came the irritable shout. Daniel lit a cigarette as he sauntered down the stairs, trudging down step by step. He’d hoped she’d calmed down by now. Like everyone in this one-horse town, he thought, all Sandra Reilly cared about was her reputation. Not that it was all that good to begin with: as long as he could remember, Sandra had always been a bit of a player. Daniel would often be left to have awkward morning after conversations, sometimes with strange men, other times with men he knew. The time he had to sit across the breakfast table from his German teacher, Mr O’Toole, was particularly traumatising.

‘What?’ he sulked as he slinked into the kitchen, blowing out smoke.

‘I’ve worked out your punishment,’ Sandra said with a knowing wink. On the table lay a Christmas table centrepiece, comprising of a log with some holly, mistletoe and other greenery stuck into it. ‘You’re going to take this to Mrs. O’Shea down the road.  She has some jobs that need doing. She’s been ever so lonely since that husband of hers died last year.’

‘You can piss off with yourself,’ he retorted, stubbing out his cigarette on the brown ashtray.

‘Fine,’ shrugged Sandra, picking up the phone. ‘I’ll just call the guards then and tell them that I know who broke into Mags Kennedy’s last night, will I? Because I am warning you son, I am this close to washing my hands of you. I won’t have the pigs on my doorstep every night.’

Daniel opened his mouth to say something, then slammed it shut, like a fish. ‘I’ll drop it into her, but then I’m going into town. It’s the twelve pubs tonight. We’re hitting Tullamore.’ He picked up the centrepiece, his wallet and his phone. ‘See you later, ma.’

‘Don’t bother. You’re not coming back until you stop treating this house like a doss house,’ Sandra screeched after him. ‘And don’t think Tom O’Connor is welcome here, neither.’

Now that he was out in the air, he could think more clearly about what he was going to do about his grim financial situation. He hated going to the job club, listening to that Barbara prattle on about interview techniques. He hadn’t heard back from any of the jobs he’d applied for, not even the packing job in Carroll’s meat factory, and the mere thought of sitting at a desk studying all day turned his brain to sludge. All he wanted to do now was throw in this centrepiece and go into town and get locked.

Mrs. O’Shea’s front garden was a tropical jungle of overgrown weeds. She was perceived to be like a modern day Mrs Dubose: cranky and slightly deranged. She hadn’t always been like that: Daniel still remembered how she used to visit his mam every Friday with a homemade apple tart in hand, how the pair of them used to hang out at his front pillar gossiping, how her garden once featured in the garden section of the Midland Tribune. He tentatively stepped over a pile of broken glass before ringing the doorbell, which he couldn’t hear echoing in her hallway.

He knocked loudly on the door, then, sensing an opportunity, cleared some of the decaying greenery from Mrs. O’Shea’s step with his dirty Nike runners and placed the centrepiece down. As he was straightening up, the front door rattled. For fuck’s sake, thought Daniel. No escape now.

‘Linda?’ said a fragile voice. Daniel tried to hide his shock. Mrs O’Shea had once been a stout woman, but now she was angular; her elbow bones almost ripped through her skin, her neck was sagging. Her chest was shapeless in her green and maroon cardigan. ‘Who are you?’

‘It’s Daniel, Mrs O’Shea. You know, Sandra’s boy? She just wanted me to drop…’

‘Come in, come in,’ interrupted Mrs O’Shea, ushering him inside. The hallway smelled musty; the once blue-papered hallway was now yellowed from years of tobacco smoke. There was a faint smell of urine, not fresh. ‘I thought you were Linda, you know,  my befriender? She comes every Wednesday. Lovely girl.’ She fumbled with a cigarette. ‘Excuse the mess. I don’t get visitors often.’

Daniel’s eyes wandered around the unkempt sitting room and noticed a small three foot Christmas tree in the corner, covered primarily in gold tinsel and the odd bauble. He predicted correctly, before he looked up, that there would be a gaudy foil decoration, brightly coloured, stretched from one end of the ceiling to the other. Even though he wasn’t there five minutes, it frightened him how desensitised he was already becoming to the smell, the gloom, the squalor.

‘I just wanted to drop this off,’ he tried again, handing over the centrepiece. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you… in fact, I…’ He turned to the front door, adjusting his coat.

‘Actually, son,’ Mrs. O’Shea interjected, ‘there’s a light bulb in the kitchen that needs changing. Could you…please? I’ve been sitting in the dark for the last few nights. The spare bulbs are in the press over there.’ She pointed at a brown chipboard press above the kitchen counter, under which rested an enormous empty wine bottle, almost filled to the top with coins and notes.

Daniel nodded and retrieved the bulb, trying to stop himself from gagging with the smell. It smelled like decaying food, human excrement and dried sweat, all at once. Mrs. O’Shea flicked the switch on the kettle and took out two greasy looking cups from the press.

‘Do you take tea?’

‘No thanks,’ Daniel said, flicking the light switch. ‘There, that’s working now.’ He pushed the chair back under the table, pretending that it made the kitchen neater.

‘A cigarette at least? Don’t think that I don’t know what you young lads get up to!’ She wagged her finger at him. ‘Just till Linda comes, please. There’s been no-one here all day.’

‘Where’s your daughter?’ Daniel asked. He wished he hadn’t accepted the cigarette; he could taste the smell of the kitchen when he inhaled. He remembered Lucy from old: she used to babysit him on a Thursday night while his mother was in White’s. She had always been a bit of a suck-up; in fact, she stopped babysitting Daniel because she was convinced he was ‘the spawn of the devil.’

Mrs. O’Shea clinked the teaspoon loudly as she stirred the tea. ‘Oh,’ she said, and then a pause. ‘She doesn’t come to visit me anymore.’

Daniel smelled a rat. ‘What do you mean, she doesn’t visit anymore? I thought she only lived on the Arden Road?’

‘She does.’

‘Then how come? Because obviously, you could use…’ He stopped himself and took a sip out of his tea. He hadn’t seen the woman in years, he had no right to comment on her living conditions.

Mrs O’Shea lit a cigarette, letting out a braying cough as she did. ‘It’s not her fault,’ she said, gazing out the window. ‘It’s mine. I treated her badly… I…’ Another cough, hacking this time. ‘I didn’t mean to…I don’t know what got into me. But the bills, they just piled up so suddenly and, well… I figured she owed me, you know? She moved off to live in her swanky house in Tullamore and I couldn’t afford to… so…’ She shrugged.

‘Oh right,’ said Daniel. He didn’t know what else to say.

‘That’s what that bottle is for, you know. I will pay her back one day before I die, if it kills me. I haven’t bought oil in an age, but this cardigan does just as well. And my stomach can’t handle much more than toast now anyway.’ Another cough. ‘I don’t go around thinking the world owes me something.’ Daniel straightened immediately. Was this a dig at him?

His phone vibrated in his pocket: a message from Vinnie. He and Tom couldn’t afford to go drinking in Tullamore, after all. Or as Vinnie so eloquently put it, ‘we’re fucking broke.’

‘Anyway, I really must head on, so…’ He stood up and ambled towards the hall.

Mrs O’Shea grabbed his arm with her cold, bony hand. ‘Thank you for calling in to see me today. It was so good to have a young’un to talk to.’ When she released it, his arm still tingled. ‘I know I’ve no right to ask, but I don’t suppose you’d call in sometime over Christmas, you and your ma? I’ve lovely mince pies in the freezer.’

‘Of course.’ He moved up the hallway, anxious to embrace the cleanness of the cold December air.

He walked briskly towards the Green, lighting a cigarette mid-walk. When he was a safe distance from Mrs O’Shea’s, he whipped the phone out of his pocket and, holding the cigarette in between his thick lips, smiled as he texted Vinnie back:

‘I know where you can get the money. Meet at mine in ten minutes.’

It’s only fair, he thought. An eye for an eye.

Keeping it Real

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Keeping it real

 

Every now and again, random memories come back to me. They come, they go. Sometimes, although they leave me shaken, I find it hard to remember exactly what left me feeling so hollow. They’re like flashes.

Over the last seven and a half years, I’ve had hundreds of these flashes, entirely involuntarily. Some are welcome, others are painful. I was scrolling through Facebook (I seem to do that a lot, don’t I?) when I came across the fact that the universally loved ‘Fairytale of New York’ marks its thirtieth birthday this year on December 15th.

And actually, now that I think about it, I’m thirty-three and I don’t remember a Christmas where somewhere, be it at a party or at a Christmas do, ‘Fairytale’ didn’t prominently feature. I first heard it this year on 25th November in a shop, which can be quite disarming if you’re not expecting it. I know this sounds somewhat ridiculous, so please allow me to explain.

I am seventeen years old, watching my mother in the kitchen (not helping. We were more a hindrance; she had her own way of doing things). She’s making her now infamous ‘twice baked’ spuds for Christmas: scooped out potato skins with a bacon, cheese and onion filling, and veggie ones for my brother. Her homemade centrepiece for Christmas is resting on the table, an impressive arrangement of holly, pine cones and dried orange slices. Her homemade Christmas cards lie addressed on the counter, ready to be delivered to the neighbours.

‘You must love Christmas, mum,’ I remark, in awe of the creativity swimming around me. Mum shrugs.

‘Oh yes, I love doing my bits and pieces,’ she says. ‘But I have to admit, my favourite part of Christmas is Fairytale of New York.’ Now friends, there is nothing more disturbing than hearing your mother, who does her best to be a ‘hip and happenin’ mum’ say that her favourite Christmas song is about a drunk and a druggie prostitute declaring their love for one another. It also, in my teenage mind, ruined any potential for that song to be cool in my head.

She didn’t explain why this was her favourite Christmas song, but in my own head, now that I’m not an immature teenager, I can clearly see why when I think about it. Mum had a rare mix of personalities – creative on the one hand and compassionate on the other. She could see positives in people that no-one else could.

Mum was real. She only wore gold jewellery; she said that silver would look gaudy on her dark skin. She was the only woman I know who had brooches to go with every outfit, even in the noughties. She had a tall, slim figure and often bought her khaki combats from the men’s department. Even though she had watches, necklaces and clip-on earrings to go with every outfit, she only got her ears pierced for the first time in her early forties.

From the outside, you’d be forgiven for thinking she was a modern day Hyacinth Bouquet. She was a natural cook and entertainer. She always dressed respectfully, even going for a coffee.

Fairytale of New York is now half of mum’s age: mum is, or would’ve been, sixty this year. I’ve spent the guts of this year pondering the legacies of now deceased disability activists, so it’s no wonder my mind has wandered to her legacy as well, which are of course my brother,  my two sisters, her beautiful granddaughter and I. The biggest thing she left behind for us is the simple reminder that it’s so important to be yourself.

And boy, did she stay true to that adage!

For example, Mum wasn’t good at driving places she didn’t know, so although she volunteered to drive me to see Trinity when I accepted my offer, she was still a bit nervous. Anyway she found it no problem but didn’t realise (or, as I suspect, chose not to realise) that Trinity’s front gate was not open to vehicles and proceeded to drive through the outside set of wrought-iron gates and wait outside the iconic wooden door that is Trinity’s Front bloody Gate.

‘This isn’t the entrance,’ I hissed at her, sliding down in my seat at the sight of Security coming towards us.

‘We’re in Trinity. I’m not backing out again into oncoming city traffic,’ she hissed back as she rolled down the window. The security officer, who I would have to flirt with in the proceeding years when I forgot the key to my apartment late at night, often with an unsigned male guest in tow, frowned at us.

‘What are you doing? You can’t come through here. Use the Lincoln Place entrance.’

‘I don’t know where that is,’ Said mum. You’re going to have to let us in.’

Later, mum would boast that she was allowed drive through the front gates of Trinity College, just like the president of china but omitted to explain why.

Of course, that is now just a memory. All we have now are memories. When Mum died I resolved to remember her just as she was. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of sentimentality, which would mean missing her more, hurting more. I thought this would make it easier to process my grief.

She was too bloody hard on me, I’d think, remembering the times she’d pushed my (perceived miniscule) abilities to the limit. She didn’t understand me. We weren’t even that close- if we were, she would’ve been more patient. (Amazing the lies we tell ourselves).

I’m twenty-five, an adult in my own right, I thought in the days following her death. She’s done her job. I will be okay.

The next five years would be spent in a sick fantasy where I would go out of my way to prove I was okay, that I wasn’t crumbling inside. No time to grieve – work is hectic! No time to grieve – I’m a mother now!

Eventually, following a mental breakdown, I let things get real again. I allowed myself to be sad and frightened, because being any other way wasn’t going to bring her back. And it was so liberating and shit at the same time, in a way I can’t describe.

The reality is mum should be sixty this year, but she was immortalised at fifty one. And I’m angry and disappointed, but at least I can admit that now.

In a fairytale world we would be running around frantically running around organising her party by now. She would turn up, hating being the centre of attention. We’d have cake, photos, posed smiles. Of course none of that is real.

But the love I have for her is, and always will be, even if it’s a different love than what we had before.

Happy sixtieth Mum – but not to worry, you’ll always be twenty-nine and a bit to me. After all, we make our own realities x

Poem: The Pretender

Let’s pretend
We’re out shopping for your present.
Shall we go for candles, or a gold chain?
(It’s dangerous to put so many candles on a cake)

Let’s pretend
You’re heading out golfing
Wearing your trendy red vest jumper
And your golden golfing brooch
Contrasting wildly with your beautiful brown skin.

Let’s pretend
We’re out in the Court Hotel
Eating knickerbocker glories.
Or at home after polishing off dinner
Eating sticky toffee pavlova,
Just for the moment
Not giving a damn about our teeth.

Let’s pretend
We’re in the KFC drive-thru in Newry –
You’re ordering your usual Chicken Zinger Burger
And you want it so much, you don’t care
If I get sick eating mine in the back of the car.

Let’s pretend
Just for today
That today is just like any other day –
Or at least – how every other day was –
The theme tune for The Bill thudding in the background,
The candles on the mantelpiece creating a ghostly glow.
You dare us to talk. We sit silently,
Not realising how long this silence will last.
I go to bed wearing your old hand-me-downs –
One day, I will have pyjamas of my own
But they will never be as warm,
Or fit me as well.

Let’s pretend
That it doesn’t hurt like hell
That your granddaughter will never know your voice
And that I will never hear her call your name.
I fill the silence that your voice left
With rants and blogs and intense anger
That things can’t be quite the way I want them.

However –
I can no longer pretend,
That today on your sixtieth birthday
I’m not brimming with anger
And that I believe
You’re in a much better place,
And that I don’t want you here
Doing all the ‘normal’ things:
Nagging, laughing, hugging, crying.
Babysitting, falling out with me
And it seems these days I don’t mourn what was
But pine for what can never be:
The fights, the mid-night conversations –
I don’t want either/or, I want both –
Otherwise I’ll be pining for something
That never existed.

And all I want to do is block out the pain
And sit around eating birthday cake,
But somehow,  I suppose
My heart will continue to mend,
You live on in a different guise my friend.
I thought I’d never live without you, that the world would end –
And the pain is still so very real –
Time hasn’t changed how I feel
And as the tears fall I know
That I’ll treasure each precious memory
Until my own life ends.

And is that enough for me?
Well, no, it will never be
But for now, I’ll just say yes and pretend.

 

Cripples In Crisis

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Thinking that today was going to be a relatively quiet day, writing-wise, I decided to settle down and watch the documentary ‘Carers in Crisis’ (aired Tuesday 5 December) and mentally pass it off as work. I had previously decided to boycott it because I feel that over the last twelve months, there has been an overemphasis on the heroism of unpaid carers, a narrative that traditionally frames people with disabilities as ‘burdens’.

Words cannot describe how grateful I am that RTE actually approached the documentary in such a sensitive way, in a manner that not only highlights the sheer exhaustion which family carers are currently experiencing, but also emphasises  that Ireland’s charitable approach to the provision of disability services isn’t working, and is not going to work going forward either.

Let’s look at this logically. It’s estimated that there are 200,000 carers in Ireland right now. Two hundred thousand people who, whether willingly or begrudgingly, are caring for a family member who has a disability or is entering old age. Two hundred thousand people who get little recognition from the State for the fact that they have put their lives on hold in order to care for their loved ones. Often, family members, as was portrayed in the documentary, have to carry out tasks such as personal care (toileting, showering), tasks that Carers and Personal Assistants now need a QQI Level 5 qualification in Healthcare Support to perform. I’d wager that many family members have never even heard of this.

There’s no doubt that many carers are drained and, as in the case of Johanne Powell who cares for her severely disabled daughter Siobhan, at the end of their tethers. All of the parents in the documentary were hoping that their dependent children died before them because they don’t trust that the State will provide the care their loved ones need. After all, HIQA has highlighted some inhumane conditions in residential centres across the country.

But one message was particularly clear: the only way the immense and arguably unnecessary burden to family carers is going to be lifted is if we start putting the person with the disability first, something which the Junior Minister with Responsibility for Disability Finian McGrath agrees is vital. However, after meeting him in person I instantly recognised his evasiveness tactic; he continually interrupted Claire Byrne with what seemed to be pre-rehearsed speeches. With respect, after watching him and meeting him last month, I feel that he takes criticism about the status quo for people with disabilities too personally. For example, he pointed out that the respite grant has been restored. He also mentioned that there is now a taskforce working on personalised budgets for people with disabilities.

What concerns me is that his experience of disability comes from being a parent of a child with a disability and while he seems to be a fierce advocate for parents and carers, we need a Minister for Disability who will speak on our behalf. We need someone who genuinely recognises that people with disabilities are tired of constantly having to fight for our rights. We live in a country where the right to residential care was signed into our constitution in 1990, but where people with disabilities have no legal entitlement to a Personal Assistant Service. Having worked in the area of Independent Living for seven years, I am now passionate about spreading the philosophy of Independent Living, not least because having a Personal Assistant is often economically wiser than living in a residential institution. The latter can cost up to €800 per week, according to last night’s show, where having a Personal Assistant coming into a person’s own home might only cost half that.

It is only through striving to protect the rights and dignity of people with disabilities in this country that we will create a better Ireland for everyone, disabled person and carer alike. It’s time to stop pitting disabled people and carers against each other, because unless our country starts providing adequate, person-centred services, there will be no winners in the end.

The Disability Movement is in crisis. We must assert our rights at every given opportunity.

Only we can stop the Movement from moving backwards any further.