Celebration

Daire, (because that is how we will now spell your name - your mother said it to me here in this bed one morning - just said it, that that was how she'd like me to spell your name at your resting place in the Plot of the Angels...) I never liked the twenty-third of September, or the twenty-fourth, or so on for a few more days, because these were dates that were drifting mercilessly past the twenty-first - the day of my birthday. Leaving it behind. For another year at least. It's always made me sad.

I've had a birthday you see, Daire, since my last - our last - little conversation. We celebrated it really last weekend - your mother and your sisters and brother and I. We all went walking on a beautiful road by the banks of Lough Corrib. Really beautiful. It was sunny in the best possible September way. Yellow sun in a deep blue sky. And the lake was deep blue also. Picture all of this as a background to green and brown hedgerows, fields, trees, all laden with the fruits of autumn - red rowan berries, rose hips and blackberries - a picture of the defining beauty of nature in my mind.

Well we walked along a grey, winding and hilly road - more a bótharín than a road - that cut its way like a viewing viaduct through this beauty. And Caomhán had his stick. And Éabha had hers. And Mammy hers. And me mine. And Aifric was looking at all of us, and at this beauty, from her perch high on my back - in a kind of rucksack-type frame that holds her stable and erect and comfortable for the duration.

How Éabha, Caomhán and even Aifric took to the walk with gusto! And how we looked at them with joy and prode! Mammy took a photo of us all with our walking gear and sticks. She used her mobile phone. Nice colour, and a cool pose. She put it on her phone as wallpaper.

It was a beautiful birthday.

During that walk I thought of you, Daire, and thought of the sad contrast of me and my birhtday, being celebrated for the fortieth time, with you never having been 'born' to this world to give us the same cause for annual celebration. I thought about this also on Monday when I was in Dublin working, on the day of my 'real' birthday. It made me pause. And made me a little bit sad. But then, on each occassion, I breathed something like a prayer, and thought of the beauty I had seen in you. And this was strength to move on.

So thank you, Daire, for that. That's all. We will always think of you here. In this family. I know that now. Because you are in all that beauty which surrounded our walk today. As we walk through days like these, in celebration, you are there, part of the beauty we see, part of us, part of our every celebration.

And I am certain (as certain as I am that you have some hand in this) that there will be many celebrations, enjoyed together by this family - your family.

By the way, today I wrote a letter to our Auntie Carmelita. She's a nun - Poppy Tom's sister - who lives and works (still - even after her sixtieth jubilee!) in Gulfport, Missouri, USA. She had sent us a card to give us comfort in losing you. She is lovely. I wrote to her and told her things - more about me, and loads about you. I'll post the letter tomorrow.

That's it. (See you tomorrow-week, of course.)

Good night, darling.
Dad.