This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.
Michael Commane
There was an interview in the weekend edition of The Irish Times with Ireland’s top athlete Ciara Mageean. In my ignorance it was the first I heard about her cancer. I then realised Ciara did a 40-minute interview on Saturday with Brendan O’Connor on his RTÉ Radio 1 programme.
How fortunate we are to have the RTÉ Radio Player facility. I tuned in and listened to every moment of an extraordinary interview. Ciara talked about her stage four cancer. And honestly I am finding it difficult to write or say anything. Ciara’s words have left me feeling extremely emotional. She is 33, a gifted world-famous Olympian. She now has bowel cancer.
The reason why I’m late writing my column this week is because I was prevaricating about writing about death.
Ciara’s interview; her attitude, her courage, her hope gave me the green light to do so.
In the last seven days I’ve experienced on three occasions the turmoil of death and what it is like for people facing the end of life.
On Thursday I visited a man in hospital, who is my age. We were on the same school relay team. He was the fastest of the four on the team, I the slowest.
Sitting at the side of his bed he told me he had a few short weeks to live. It’s almost impossible to process that news.
I’m friendly with a woman in her early 60s, who has serious cancer and is in a nursing home. Last week her sister died of cancer. It’s difficult to comprehend that.
On Friday a woman contacted me to tell me her husband was close to dying. He has been ill for a number of years. He’s 80, a gentleman; we first met over 10 years ago. His family is distraught.
It’s been a lot to take in, in seven days. Death is something ahead of all of us. I’m no grim reaper but I am forever asking what is it all about. I ask the question sometimes flippantly, sometimes seriously.
And now that I am far closer to death than birth, the question often rings loudly in my head.
As to why I became a priest is a serious question; why I have stayed so far is an even a more serious question.
But right now I can’t avoid asking the big question: is there a God? I have wrestled with the idea all my life.
Some of my closest friends insist there is no God and yes, they influence me; sometimes I’m inclined to nod my head and agree with them, but most times I pull back and go to my default position and say; yes, I believe in God.
Having worked as a prison and hospital chaplain having taught at post primary level I’ve seen first hand how fragile we all are, no matter how well we hide it, or unaware of it.
I can’t visualise my parents have been annihilated; I believe they are experiencing, in ways incomprehensible to me, the mystery and delight of God.
Ciara Mageean said to Brendan there are no guarantees in life. What about our faith guaranteeing God? It’s a huge question. Dare I say it; I believe. We have been made to be with God. I believe, but weakly.
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