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I HAVE A confession to make to my fellow special needs parents. This evening, I broke one of our unspoken cardinal rules. I let my mind wonder what it would be like if my son wasn’t severely disabled.
Twelve years plus into this journey and I know better, but something came over me tonight when I was getting him sorted in his bed. I lost control and it happened.
My mind wandered into that place that can only bring sadness and heartbreak, that place of imagining him with no brain damage, no resulting disabilities, and completely healthy.
It is dangerous to wonder what it would be like, if only.
If only…
I am a mother to two amazing boys: Declan who is 8 and Brendan Bjorn who is 12. Brendan was born with congenital CMV, which has left him severely disabled and medically fragile. He is my angel.
If only that microscopic, common virus (CMV/cytomegalovirus) didn’t enter my body while I was pregnant. If only that virus didn’t cross through the placenta and into his just developing body. If only that virus didn’t attack his brain just as it was forming in the first trimester. If only.
Tonight, I looked down at him in his bed, smiling happily at his favourite teddy. I see his thick, dark brown hair and his beaming blue eyes. I see his high cheekbones and those eyelashes that all the girls drool over. I see his perfectly shaped nose and beautifully smiling mouth. And then it happened.
That was the moment I slipped up and my mind went racing carelessly into the danger-zone of wondering what would it be like.
Imagining a different life for him
I imagine him walking and talking, and laughing at winding me up by telling me what happened at school today with a girl he likes.
I imagine him standing at the altar waiting for his soon to be bride as she walks down the aisle toward him. I imagine him looking lovingly at her, the way he always looked at me.
I wondered would he be smart or sporty or both. Would he be well mannered and kind? Would he be interested in maths or science or literature or another subject? Would he be affectionate and open, or quiet and shy? Would he love me as he does today, as he is now?
I wandered where I shouldn’t have and I wondered far too much.
What can never be
I looked back down at him when, with his much loved laughter, he brought me thankfully back to reality. You see, as difficult as this reality is, wondering what it would be like if it were different is even more difficult, because that reality can never happen.
I used to have dreams when he was little about him walking and talking, and I would always wake up sobbing. As the years have passed, those dreams simply don’t happen anymore.
I think that reality seems to have a way of invading even our dreams. But, I also think that it is for self-preservation, for if we let our minds wander into the land of what can never be, we risk losing our footing on this frequently rocky path.
Find a candidate who is both charismatic and a genius at stroke politics and deception. You have your TD
Class Todd
It’s about time that Chambers learns that politicians are back stabbers and that fairness and integrity doesn’t come into it!!
They could be wasting their time.
Modus operandi in a nutshell Todd
Then why does he hire a P.R consultant to bring this in to the media? Hollystown is in Dublinwest. in fact it’s where the convention is going to take place.
He fixed de roooad
I hate that. Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha
No offence David McGuinness ,
But if the public didn’t want you the first 2 times, then I don’t think it’s going to be 3rd time lucky for you…..
Speaking of people who have been roundly rejected by the electorate multiple times but keep trying to be elected, Fidelma Healy Eames announced today that’ll she’ll be running as an independent.
Thats unfair, he finished second each time for a single seat, in a 4 seater he’s now a shoe in. You’d be upset if you campaigned twice(both hopeless cases) and did the groundwork for the party in the constituency and then when a proper election comes along your place is given to someone else.
I have always heard that your own party is the one that you should watch your back, the gravy train is too attractive looks like nothing is going to change if this is what is going into politics
I have always heard that your own party is the one that you should watch your back, the gravy train is too attractive looks like nothing is going to change if this is what is going into politics. Gods help our country.
Alan – Are there no Caps in FF Dublin ?
No Fianna Fail TDs in Dublin. Let’s keep it that way!!
Or fg/liebor
Do my eyes deceive me, FF trying to manipulate a vote?? Say it aint so!
Don’t worry councillor Chambers, if you lose just get the party to make everybody vote again until you get the answer you want, just like yiz did with Lisbon.
Ah bless, its great to see youth given its chance (the youth that coincidentally didn’t need to leave the country to find a job as a teacher, or have the cash to undertake postgrad entry to medicine a la Messers McGuiness and Chambers respectively). It never ceases to amaze me that there are people of my generation, a generation which is better educated, more world weary and ultimately more cynical than ever before, who want to engage in the farce that is Irish politics, and who will fight for the privilege to do so under the aegis of a party which is at the core of the countries near destruction.
If you want to know just where we are as a people, take a look at Cllr. Chambers twitter feed. The last tweet thanks him for arranging road sweeping. Road sweeping. Truly something requiring the oversight of an elected official, “looking after his constituents” as its put.
Jaysus ya know things are tough when your fighting someone to be selected as a FF candidate
Do you really mean it when you say there is actually a ff organisation in dublin west?
I think it’s safe to say that Paul Donnelly sinn fein will take it this time around.
He’s been rejected countless times by the electorate too so I wouldn’t be so confident either..
Someone hand Chambers a tissue. You seriously mean to tell me that he’s complaining that FF did something unfair, against core values and unjust? What the füćk party did he think he joined? FF isn’t exactly the beacon of good policy and fairness, it’s FF for christs sake.
Hopefully they’ll row themselves off a cliff.
Two bald men fighting over a comb.
Terrible to see the posh young chambers fella trying to stop people living in his own constituency from voting in a convention. That’s a great marker for his commitment to democracy. He has more money behind him than integrity.
Politicians shafting each other, how unusual .
Oh God! Just the sight of them…
FF have no seats in Dublin let’s try and keep it that way,In the unlikely event that the school teacher gets elected will he be giving up the teaching job?
According to a fellow FF Cllr, Chambers is stuffed with monies as both his parents are Consultants looked after by Mary Harney.
Typical FF carry on- more concerned with themselves rather than the people.
Do you have a little bit of Job envy Cllr?
Or perhaps a bit envious of the work dedication and talent required to become a consultant?
Sorry, I just realised you are SF.
In your utopia, those that have work ethic, talent and dried to become hospital consultants should not be rewarded anything more that a road sweeper would be.
Long live the Utpoia.
Joke of a comment,
We should give them boxing gloves and let them fight it out for the privilege….not that they’ll get the seat…..but at least we could enjoy them thumping the head off each other.
I said months ago FF would shaft mcguinness.
Chambers will get castleknock vote and that’s what gets you elected in Dublin west.
McGuinness should have defected to Sinn fein years ago.
He would be more suited to this party him and Paul Donnely could run and win two seats.
Sinn fein would support him the way FF never have.
Chambers won’t get the Castleknock vote. Well certianly not all of it anyway. He’s in his first term as a local representative and has done very little. The ‘castleknock vote’ was Lenihans because he actually gave a damn about us. The Castleknock area has absolutely no representative in Dáil Éireann because the constituency is far too large. Every single TD in this constutuency are too concerned with the goings on in the Mulhuddart/Hartstown areas to even care about the fact that there is a whole other part of this constituency. Personally I believe that Chambers is mentioning this now to get his name out there, so he’s known in the constituency for the election, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to do him any good or gain him any support. If anything it’s completely turned me off voting for him.
apparently chambers has hired a P.R consultant in the last few days to try and halt convention, that’s what money does.
McGuinness can think for himself so wouldn’t fit in with the Shinners.
No he can’t he trots out the FF party rehersed line.
Also he has been involved in a few scandals that the party HQ might frown apon.
Also Alan you seem like mcguinness’s own or agent :)
Or relation maybe?
Gary, that’s David McGuinness’s campaign manager using a fake accounting my name to desperately support his bro. It’s quite hilarious TBH.
@ the real Alan
That’s makes sense his posts sounded like a PR agent alright.
Must be a panic in the mcguinness camp.
Was there some issue around racism in that camp?
He is known in the constituency. He topped the poll in the local election by a distance. He’s doing this now to simply get the chance to run in the election, not “to get his name out there” for the election. It’s one thing for a teenager to misunderstand the selection committee scenarion, but for mindless drones to then like the comment makes very little sense.
Will he do your work as well?
And this crowd want to run the country!
I don’t know the man but being in The party that destroyed the country says all I need to know.
That’s the seat that lenihan failed to reach to necessary quota to be elected got in as he was last man standing
Margret Thacher would have a better chance of getting elected.
David mcguiness is a good man and he’s good for the community I see the good work he does! He deserves this ,
he has worked as a councillor for years now and is still in his 20s. there is no one else in FF who could finish 2nd in two by-elections.
FF are gangsters who looted this country.
Except of course the guy whose seat it was, the one who won the last seat in Dublin for FF. But he was from Castleknock, God forbid.
How many elections has Paul Donnelly failed to get elected in?
Fianna Fáil chappies squabbling over who gets their big nose in the trough is the outstanding glaringly obvious end result here. Another exposé of the real mindset of Fianna Failers. This has nothing to do with whats best for their own party, the community or the country, and all simply about a power lust that’s inherent in them . As David’s campaign manager posted recently on social media,in reference to the possibility of David missing out on selection.
“I’ll be getting my ladders and posters out, because one way or the other, we’ll be running”
I’m presuming this threat to the FF stalwarts didn’t go unnoticed, and again this attitude is probably whats most symptomatic of what is wrong in politics, The seat is MINE, Mine , all mine.
……..Time for the popcorn.
I think the whole Nulty affair left a bad taste in people’s mouths could really effect the McGiinness vote.
Let them both stand.. Hopefully this will split the vote and both remain unelected
Lots and lots of comments on the fact Chambers’ parents are doctors and I couldn’t agree more. After all, all of the best run societies in the world follow a system that shows disdain to the educated.
Don’t be fooled by the idea that we should judge this charlatan on his merits, I mean come on now- a degree in Law and Political Science from the top university in the country, studying Medicine and winning a local election by a country mile all within 18 months- does this guy think we want intelligence in politics? Pfft.
It makes far more sense to judge him on what his parent’s do by profession. That’s the real measure of a man.
In fact I go one further and say it’s high time we indulded in Sinn Fein’s Pol Pot-esque vision and slaughter doctors, other professionals and then their young- sure what can they offer us anyway? Let’s hear it for our own Khmer Rouge! Hip Hip Hooray!
nice to see the Fianna Faied priorities have not changed
Bit Ironic seeing your “yes equality” pic.
Chambers is a clown
Could not care less about FF gangsters
where are members of the Lenihan family
A lot of fighting over who gets to lose their deposit first.
Hahahaha they’ll be winnin nowt
Destroy all big parties in election
Clenched fists …… Are you ducking joking.
Seeing Fianna fail and that photo of yer man with his hand up, i’m getting an image of a bunch of eejits you’d find in a father ted episode. And i’d say i wouldn’t be far off!
who cares?
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