Three-legged sheep-dogs.

Please share with someone in the HSE.

“ Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.

It’s the only good fight there is “

- - Charles Bukowski, poet.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a story about a little boy with a hole in his heart. To say I was disappointed with the response to it would be understatement of the year. Now, that’s not to say people didn’t respond ( a few made very sizeable contributions to Nicky Jnr’s GoFundMe ) but I was surprised by the lack of reaction and general dis-interest.

I can see from recent posts that shorter pieces of writing with a single focus resonate a little more. I can, no doubt, luxuriate in getting to the point sometimes. Or all the time. People are busy and lots of good writers out there warrant attention. So, I will continue on this shorter stream for awhile.

But…

I write to search for depth and to unearth the hidden truths and comforting lies residing within me. This method of typing and hitting keys on the keyboard is an altogether uncomfortable writing experience. Because it’s mostly about finding the isolation to scrape out the words. But, I can luxuriate in the isolation too sometimes and not bother with the words.

My mother recently had the experience of observing this writing process when I sat down to write the Nicky Jnr story ( link at the end ). It involved incessant tea-making and constant smoking and a couple of spins out into the country-side in the car and arrival back to the kitchen table and lap-top after midnight and then more tea and more smoking.

Her worried conclusion?

“ You’re turning into Uncle John “

The observation pleased me. For it was both true and false. John, the live-in uncle of my childhood was the master of silence, all night tea-making, filter-less Sweet Afton, but also of a private, innocent smiling to himself that made a young fella believe there might well be a God sitting above there in heaven too. Surely, only something divine could produce such a beautiful, bashful smile hidden from public view.

He lived in our home and I grew up on his land. Roaming it on foot and by tractor. Less than thirty acres with sheep and cattle and fields scattered across three different town-lands of the village. I’d often be sent down to the Clashaganny land to count cattle and return back a couple of hours later having forgotten the number. After a quick totting of numbers, I’d utilize the field-time by reading a book and smoking stolen Sweet Afton. Taking reading breaks to inspect the fairy-ring-fort in the corner of the field or investigate the hidden mysteries of a ditch tunnelled by trees, brambles and bunches primroses. I often invited myself into neighbours fields as well to eh.. count their cattle too when I’d get bored with our own land.

It was a time when every farm holding had a sheep-dog or two and all moving of cattle and sheep was done on foot and on the road with the aid of a trusty and much loved sheep-dog. The main reason it took so long to get from A to B in the West of Ireland, back in the eighties, wasn’t only due to the poor condition of all the roads but also because a fifty mile car journey would usually involve getting stuck behind livestock on the move more than once. Animals being shifted from one West of Ireland parcel of land to another, a couple of miles away.

When I wrote the Nicky Jnr story under the watchful and baffled eye of my eighty-year old mother, I had a secondary goal. One not mentioned in the original article, which I can see now was an error of judgement. That goal was for the article to find its way onto the computer screens of people working in the Irish Health System, that it might nudge one or two of them into tweaking the system into giving this boy his heart procedure. While, the whole Irish Health System probably needs to be dismantled, re-imagined and rebuilt; that’s not much use to little Nicky Jnr. The little boy may well die on the operating table but his parents and brothers and sisters are willing to take the chance. For, without it, his fate is sealed anyway. Someone in the system can do something, perhaps in a quiet manner, to help.

And I’d like you all to help me find them.

Now, a feature of all the movement of cattle and sheep on the Irish roads thirty and forty years ago was the occasional death and maiming of sheep-dogs getting clipped by a passing car or lorry. I remember well when when we lost one and the surprising heartbreak of my father to his injury and subsequent death. His death was my distracted fault. I called him to cross a busy road to jump into the tractor beside me, not seeing the approach of an oncoming car. Another forgotten feature of Ireland back then was its attitude to the injured sheep-dog with a broken leg. The kindest course of action was to put the poor fella down immediately and without question. The only compassionate course of action, they said. It was cruel not to, in other words.

Over the last few years, one of the incidental features of motoring around and meeting people is the number of three-legged dogs and cats I come across. The pets of the resistance, you might say. My ingrained instinct is always to seek out pain in their eyes, something, anything, to confirm the truth of my conditioned thinking about sheep-dogs and absorbed into my bones from youth. I have yet to meet pain or indeed any discomfort in their eyes or well-being. All I have seen is a whole lot of love and quiet comfort. Given and received.

I suppose the fate of all those dearly departed sheep-dogs was sealed once their use and primary function could no longer be provided. No longer able to help round up sheep in a field or move cattle along a busy road. It wasn’t really about compassion but rather the general societal lie being sold to help everyone sleep at night.

I suppose, whether Nicky jnr lives or dies he will never be able to fulfil the current societal function and lie in vogue: The monstrous growth and appetite of the Irish economy must be continuously fed at all costs.

It will cost too much money to help Nicky Jnr, and besides, he’ll never be useful towards promoting the current societal lies of the times.

So, I have request.

Please take the time to share the article below with someone you might know in Ireland’s gargantuan health service. You don’t need to read it. Just send it to someone in there with a little soul to care enough to click a digital box. And change the tick mark from No to Yes.

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