For Denis Carroll, my Dad,
I’m lying on my back in the salt water staring up at the cloudless sky that seemed to dominate the summers of my 1970s childhood.My ears are submerged under the water but I can still hear your voice through the waves,strong and clear,encouraging me to stay afloat, the first step in the arduous process that was teaching me and my siblings how to swim.
The swimming lessons continued as did the others,cycling without stabilisers,theorems for my Inter Cert,creative writing as Gaeilge for Irish essays and the ones that caused the most stress,teaching me to drive. Even now whenever I see Frank our postman in Westport,I can picture his smiling,unsuspecting face as I sped towards him on one of our many jaunts.You shouting, “brake!,brake!” while I continued to press my foot even harder on the accelerator, having mixed both pedals up.Only the screech of the handbrake as you pulled it up hard, signalled the halt of your beloved Opel Ascona inches away from the unsuspecting and still smiling Frank.A less brave man would never have allowed his 16 year old daughter back in the driver’s seat again but you did and insisted I keep going, saying I had to or I’d never try again. And I did,despite my white knuckles gripping the steering wheel tight and my legs wobbling with shock.
And so on, standing beside me as I embarked on all life’s major milestones, exams, college, travel, interviews, new jobs, marriage and children – your grandchildren.Always encouraging, coaxing, motivating.Your favourite expression, “It’s only a pebble in your shoe” when things got challenging. Things have been challenging for you now, these last two years since your diagnosis, a cruelly ironic one after giving up the dreaded cigarettes 25 years ago.Not surprisingly it is you once again who is teaching us. Teaching us how to look positively on this, how to love life, how to hope and how to believe.
Years later I finally managed to learn to swim in the pool at the Castlecourt hotel in Westport.The sense of achievement was truly powerful. However,it could not compete with those golden moments out in the Atlantic air, the waves lapping against the shore at Bertra as you stayed with us and all was well with the world.
Happy Father’s Day Dad
Love Maria.